Free Assessment: How does your sales & marketing measure up?

Get Started
Close

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.
Get Started
HubSpot  |   News  |   Sales & Marketing Technology

HubSpot workflows now support delayed actions by event, comments in beta

Liz Murphy

By Liz Murphy

Aug 23, 2020

HubSpot workflows now support delayed actions by event, comments in beta

Late last week, I noticed a quick and unexpected flurry of activity in one of our internal Slack channels:

Screen Shot 2020-08-23 at 3.29.25 PM

At first, I thought they were excited (as I was) by the recent news that the next Fast and Furious movie might have an outer space element. I mean, NOS in space. Can you even imagine?

But I was wrong... something which happens only three times per quarter.

You see, as it turns out, the team at HubSpot had quietly, with little to no fanfare, rolled out two updates specific to their automated workflows tool within their HubSpot Marketing Hub:

  1. The ability to delay actions by workflows due to an event.
  2. A beta of internal commenting capabilities at specific workflow stages.

Though innocuous-sounding on their face, each of these two changes is actually a pretty big deal. So, let's talk about what each of these super simple, yet absurdly powerful updates is and why you'll want to start using them immediately.

🎓 Free IMPACT+ course: Mastering automation with HubSpot workflows

HubSpot workflow delayed actions by event

The easiest way to explain this update is to show you:

HubSpot Video

That's right. I didn't just save you one click with this one-minute(ish) video. I saved you three. You're welcome.

Why is this such a big deal?

Well, I'm more of an expert in words and commas. So, I'll leave it to IMPACT HubSpot trainer Joe Bachir to answer this question:

"Delaying until an event happens takes all of the guess work out of adding timed delays into your workflows and allows you to create actions that happen ONLY after a step is taken within a HubSpot workflow.

There are a lot of times where you add delays specifically to follow up with an if/then branch in hopes that the contact or someone on your team has time to do an action that will qualify them for a path in the branch.

If that person never performs the action needed and the delay is up, that contact will go to the 'no' side of the branch and an action you choose will happen. Sometimes you want this to happen in order to send a reminder or follow up email.

However, with the new delay until event happens, we can create workflows that only trigger the next step until the event we want to happen, happens. And since we can choose 'property value changed' this gives the user tons of customization in terms of what type of event needs to happen in order for the delay to end."

Pretty amazing, right? But before you go run off to update your current HubSpot workflows and create new ones, I've got one more eensy-weensy, world-rocking HubSpot update to share with you.

Comments in HubSpot workflows now in beta

Have you ever wanted to make notes in a HubSpot workflow for your colleagues to provide more context, an explanation, or other piece of critical information? Well, HubSpot has now put an internal commenting feature in beta:

Screen Shot 2020-08-23 at 4.09.59 PM

What? Seven's a great number! It's no 23, but it's close.

Here's another example of it in use from HubSpot:

Screen Shot 2020-08-19 at 3.14.58 PM

This HubSpot workflow feature actually has its origins as a request from the HubSpot community all the way back in 2017:

Screen Shot 2020-08-23 at 4.13.30 PM

Support for this idea continued to roll in over the next couple of years:

Screen Shot 2020-08-23 at 4.17.56 PM

Screen Shot 2020-08-23 at 4.14.29 PM

Others also noted that this type of commenting feature is invaluable when you have growing marketing teams managing increasingly complex workflows that require more insight and understanding at first glance.

How to access this beta for workflow comments

The beta for commenting and making notes at workflow stages is not something that is available automatically. Instead, if you are interested in gaining access to the commenting in workflows beta, you need to fill out this form, per HubSpot. All you need to give them is your email address and your HubSpot portal ID. 

How to stay current with HubSpot updates

According to our crack team of HubSpot trainers, HubSpot has a habit of being a bit sneaky with their product updates:

hubspot-workflows-update

HubSpot's sneaky-sneak behavior notwithstanding, the Big Orange Crew does publish regular updates for their larger product announcements. Still, sometimes the best way to get the inside scoop on these new rollouts is to simply keep your eyes peeled for the little "new" badges that appear:

Screen Shot 2020-08-23 at 4.43.23 PM

If you have your own wishlist of updates you'd love to see from HubSpot, you can suggest product changes across all of their marketing, sales, and service products within the HubSpot Ideas Communityand you can upvote ideas from others. 

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.

Related Articles

HubSpot Update September 2023: What’s New from INBOUND

September 13, 2023
Jessica Palmeri Jessica Palmeri

HubSpot Pricing: Your Guide to Everything HubSpot Costs

August 24, 2023
Will Smith Will Smith

How To Measure The Trust You've Built With Your Audience (with template)

August 7, 2023
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

HubSpot CRM Review — Pros and Cons

July 24, 2023
John Becker John Becker

Track These 5 Inbound Marketing Metrics to See Better Results

October 31, 2022
John Becker John Becker

Can HubSpot Help My Retail Business Grow?

July 31, 2022
Joe Bachir Joe Bachir

Get More Out of HubSpot Reporting With a Third-party Tool

July 9, 2022
John Becker John Becker

4 Keys To An Effective HubSpot Strategy in 2022

April 22, 2022
Carina Duffy Carina Duffy

Using They Ask, You Answer in Customer Service

April 1, 2022
John Becker John Becker

Is The HubSpot Free CRM Actually Free?

February 18, 2022
Joe Bachir Joe Bachir

Ultimate List of HubSpot Pros and Cons

January 8, 2022
Carina Duffy Carina Duffy

How To Optimize Your Marketing Automation Workflows With HubSpot (Tips)

November 12, 2021
Kimberly Marshall Kimberly Marshall

Top 13 Inbound Marketing & HubSpot Solutions Partner Program Agencies for 2022

October 29, 2021
Kimberly Marshall Kimberly Marshall

HubSpot Sales Hub: 18 Things Every Sales Rep Should Know How to Do (+ Videos)

October 28, 2021
John Becker John Becker

INBOUND 2021 Recap: Takeaways, Speakers, and Lessons Learned

October 25, 2021
John Becker John Becker

Need a HubSpot Admin? Here’s How to Find and Hire the Right Candidate

October 22, 2021
John Becker John Becker

How to Get Sales Reps to Use the HubSpot CRM

October 18, 2021
Kimberly Marshall Kimberly Marshall

HubSpot and Data Privacy: How to Collect Contacts the Right Way

October 4, 2021
John Becker John Becker

INBOUND is Fast Approaching, Google Leads are Syncing, and Workflow Actions are Placeholding [Hubcast 275]

September 23, 2021
Carina Duffy Carina Duffy

How to Know When You’ve Outgrown HubSpot Sales Hub Starter

September 23, 2021
John Becker John Becker

How to Get the Most Out of Your 2-Week HubSpot Free Trial

September 13, 2021
John Becker John Becker

CMS Hub Starter, business unit add-on, and Stephanie does email validation on a giant database [Hubcast ep. 274]

August 27, 2021
Carina Duffy Carina Duffy

How much HubSpot do I need?

August 17, 2021
John Becker John Becker

New HubSpot CMS Hub Starter Tier Released for Growing Businesses

August 6, 2021
Paul D. Grant Paul D. Grant

5 HubSpot Sales Hub Tips for Assignment Selling

July 23, 2021
Tracey Stepanchuk Tracey Stepanchuk