| Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends |
| September 22, 2026 | September 22, 2026 | October 15, 2026 |
Zendesk is excited to introduce a new type of step that causes an action flow to wait for a specified duration before continuing.
This announcement includes the following topics:
What is changing?
Action builder now has a Wait step that pauses an action flow for a specified duration before continuing to the next step in the workflow. Wait times can be configured for as little as 1 minute or a maximum of 31 days.
Wait steps can be used in a variety of ways, such as:
- Follow ups: Waiting 24 hours after tickets are solved before sending a CSAT survey
- Escalations: Waiting 4 hours, then escalating an open ticket to a manager
- SLA breach prioritizations: Waiting until 5 minutes before an SLA breach, evaluating whether the ticket is still about to breach an SLA, and, if so, changing the ticket's priority to Urgent
- Rate limiting: Waiting briefly, for example 1 minute, between API calls or loop iterations
- Bump-bump-solve: Waiting 5 minutes for a customer to respond to a message, sending an "Are you still there?" message, waiting again for 1 minute, checking for a response and solving the ticket is there is still no response from the customer
- Multi-stage workflows: Onboarding workflows that begin with a welcome message, wait a few days, then send onboarding tips to the new employee
- Cool-down periods: Waiting before finalizing cancellations, deactivations, or other sensitive actions with permanent consequences
The action flow execution logs record wait start time, target resume time, time remaining, and wait completion time.
For more information, see Adding wait steps to action flows.
Why is Zendesk making this change?
Until now, action flows have always run straight every time they are triggered. However, Zendesk understands that many real processes need to pause mid-process and wait for something outside of the workflow to happen. With wait steps, it is possible to automate these processes with a single action flow rather than having to break it up across multiple action flows and relying on fragile workarounds such as polling loops, separate listener action flows, or external orchestration tool to stitch the state back together.
Wait steps significantly extend the workflows that can be automated through action flows and make action flows easier to create, manage, and scale.
What do I need to do?
Wait steps for action flows are being rolled out to all accounts with access to action builder and action flows. To begin using them, create or edit an action flow and add a wait step.
Note: Action flows invoked by AI Agents or Agent Assist have a hard execution timeout of 30 seconds. If a Wait step causes a flow to exceed 30 seconds, AI Agents will trigger a fallback path and Agent Assist will mark the action as failed. Ensure action flows designed for AI Agents or Agent Assist do not include Wait steps that exceed this limit.
If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, visit our community forum where we collect and manage customer product feedback. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.