Wait block

Wait a minute...or a day. You can wait as long as you wish to send communication and alerts, check status or update contacts by using the Wait block in Flow. Let's break it down quickly, you have waited long enough to read this article (pun intended 😉).

• From the Flow block library, drag & drop the Wait block to the Flow canvas.
• Hover over the block to see the settings and delete button.
• Click on the settings button.

Wait block settings

The five types of delay are displayed. 

• Minutes of delay: Select how many minutes you are willing to wait.
• Days of delay: Specify the number of days you need to wait.
• Time after n days: Set after how many days and at what time should an email, for example, be sent.
• Wait until date: Wait until a specific date and time before any communication is sent. Contacts entering this block after the specified date will pass on without delay.
• Use elastic timeline: Here the time is stretchable, depending on when the contact arrives at this block and how much they should wait. But if you are interested in the details, go and read the Use the elastic timeline in Wait block article and prepare to be amazed by it!
• Schedule using contact variable: you can set the wait time to be before or after days/hours/minutes of the value in the selected dateTime field.

Choose the delay type that fits your campaign the best.

For contacts entering after the specified time:

Send to next block/s immediately – if a contact arrives to the wait block after the scheduled time the contact will be passed along immediately.

Do NOT send to next block/s – if a contact arrives to the wait block after the scheduled time the contact will not pass along.

This is only relevant for the: Wait until date, Use elastic timeline and Schedule using contact variable options.

Note: The timing used in the Wait block is according to the time-zone set for the account. You can see which time-zone your account is in at any time, by going to Settings → Details and Billing Information → Company Information & Licences.

Tab reports

The block reports can be accessed after you activate your Flow campaign. For each report, a date picker is provided where you can select a specific date range and see the data of each block for the selected period. The pre-set date range for all blocks is All time.

In an active flow hover over the block and click on the Settings button. In the left panel click the Reports tab and there you can see the number of:

• Contacts that arrived here,
• Contacts that passed along and 
• Contacts that are still waiting.

Reschedule

For your contacts that are still waiting, we are introducing you to the reschedule option!
The option is placed in the tab Reports, right next to the number of contacts that are still waiting.
Clicking on the calendar icon (🗓), it will open a date & time range where you'll be able to reschedule their exit to a different point in time (even immediately).

Here is an example - let's say you have a flow campaign for your new event. And you have a Wait block connected to an SMS block. The block is scheduled to send the SMS message right before the event. But the event is moved for a few hours. Now, you can reschedule to a new date and time, confirm the time and you are good to go!

Note 1) You can reschedule only the contacts that arrived in the Wait block and are still waiting!
Note 2) Rescheduling will not affect new entries in the Wait block!

That's it! Go ahead and use this block in your flow campaign. Or if you like reading, we will not disappoint you. Read about splitting up *cough* .. we mean how to split stuff up. Oh boy... Please go to the Split block and you'll get the gist.