Setting timeouts for automation process steps

You can set timeouts to ensure that automation processes do not indefinitely stay in steps that require a human decision. If nobody moves a contact within a process to another step before the timeout expires, the system advances the contact automatically. The following types of steps support timeouts:

• Standard
• User choice
• Multi-choice
• First win

To add a timeout limit for a step:

1. Edit the step by clicking the pencil icon next to its name.

   • The Process step properties dialog opens.

2. Under Timeout settings, specify when you want the process to move to the next step: 

   • Specific interval - set the length of the timeout interval. The time starts running when a contact moves into the step. Every instance of the process has a separate timeout counter.
   • Specific day - set the exact date (and optionally time) when you want the process to move into the next step. Applies to all instances of the process.

3. Choose to which step the process continues if the timeout expires via the Leave through selector.

   • For Standard and User choice steps, you can select a special timeout source point.

4. Click Save and close the properties dialog.

5. If you selected a separate timeout source point as the Leave through option, connect the new source point to another step in the process designer.