Pause a Workflow

I would like the ability to pause a workflow, thus keeping all users at the step they are in, and then unpause it a few days later.  Adding delay steps will not accomplish the same thing.  For example, I want to pause a campaign during a holiday week, but start it again the following week without losing anyone.  There is no way to successfully do this with a delay step unless every user is at the same step - which obviously will never be the case. 

HubSpot updates
19 Replies
Esteemed Contributor

Just come across this thread when looking to understand what happens when you turn off a workflow.


In our case we have a simple goal: pause a workflow so any pending messages are put on hold until the workflow is resumed. New contacts enter the workflow during this time but equally do no receive messages until the workflow is unpaused.


Am I correct in thinking this is not how workflows function, and so it's not possible to effectively 'pause' and 'unpause' a workflow? The article below sounds like it's even more complicated:


Hoping for some clarity, if not good news Smiley Wink



New Contributor

Sorry Blinkertoon, there's no good news here.  The best thing they have told people to do is to upvote this idea so the prodct people eventually see it, which is a joke.  Especially when during and around the holidays.  It makes me think they don't actually understand how sales work.

New Contributor

This feature is sorely needed during the holidays, for B2B organizations at least...perhaps thats why it's not a priority for HS. 


Regular Contributor

If possible, making this something that could be set within the Workflow configuration settings (like the schedule options for Business Days only and Suppression Lists) would make the most sense for a no-execution-on-holidays setting. 


Any updates on this feature in 2018?  We desperately need the ability to pause workflows for customers that are in payment bill fail remediation so we can halt the reminders and then start them again if needed.  Same issue for product drip emails, especially since we can't start someone in the middle of a workflow.  HubSpot, can you help us out?

Regular Contributor

 It is thanksgiving tomorrow and instead of pausing a workflow, i have to add nonsense delays to ensure i don't bother prospects during a holiday....

Occasional Contributor

Just ran into this issue -- we got a note from a client to pause sending out emails for a specific campaign, and were surprised to find out that this isn't possible.

Rather than pausing, we had to sprinkle arbitrarily-large delay steps throughout the workflow.  That's really not how this ought to work. 

New Member

I mentioned this same thing on the chat. When I have an employee on vacation, I need to be able to stop all tasks from being assigned so they don't return to thousands of overdue tasks. Turning the workflow off is not an option and adding a delay is not an option since it doesn't affect those actively enrolled in the workflow. Also, not everyone is at the same point in any given workflow, so it would take changing every single aspect of every workflow that that employee is currently assigned to. Plus, as mentioned, it wouldn't even take effect for the people already active in a workflow. This is a big issue IMO

Regular Contributor

It should be noted that tools like Outreach do this already.  I'm fighting an uphill battle to use more HubSpot Sales and less Outreach or Salesforce... the HS Product Dev Team has gotta help me out here!!