How do I create an interactive wait time between steps in my automation?

Many customers have a need to create an interactive, or real-time, automation that may evaluate data changes or behaviors of their contacts through an automation and follow-up based on those changes quickly. Each of the Condition steps in the designer include an option to re-evaluate up to a max period of time.

In the Opened Email condition seen below, 're-evaluate for a specified timeframe or until conditions are met' is set for 2 weeks. This means that the step will continue to evaluate the open activity for a period of up to 2 weeks. Contacts who meet the criteria within 2 weeks will move to the Yes path, while contacts that do not meet the criteria after 2 weeks will move to the No path of the workflow.

Notes

1. Typically there is not reason to use a Pause + a Condition step that will re-evaluate in conjunction, but choose one method or the other.
   
   
2. Depending on your license, customers have the option to START their automation with a single or multiple events/conditions rather than a "Send Email" or "Send SMS" step. Starting an automation with a condition(s) step (commonly referred to as Event-Based Automation) allows you to wait indefinitely on a change to a subscriber's demographic field (all fields are available) or category to kick off your automation.
   
   
3. Availability of automation features depend on your license package. For more information on licenses, please visit https://www.delivra.com/pricing or email our Client Success team.
   
   
4. For condition steps within an automation, the "Re-evaluate for a specified timeframe or until conditions are met" setting can be checked with no timeframe configured to continue to evaluate until conditions are met, essentially allowing an indefinite evaluation period.

Resources

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