Question

How exactly does a wait block work? And has anyone used it successfully?

  • 7 December 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 213 views

We are having problems with a wait block. It doesn't seem to be working properly for us. We have a wait block that users get to and we see x users finished waiting. But they don't go on to the next step. The next step is a post that doesn't have any rules or conditional logic. But the users who finished on the wait block don't see the post. See the attached image.

 

I've tested and gone through the flow as a test user. I've got through the proceeding step and opened a stopwatch and timed it and after the wait period (currently set to 1 minute) the next step does not trigger.

 

Intercom-Wait-block-issues-2022-12-08_10-12-38 

Technically, how is wait implemented? Does the intercom Javascript code essentially start a timer? Does it rely on the user performing some action like checking the timer on a click event or a page reload? I'd like to know technically how it works.

 

What I've seen is the next step in my series has shown up. But it didn't show up after the wait period passed. It showed up on the second time I logged in as the test user. It looked to me that wait was relying on some sort of interaction rather than just purely running a timer in the background.

 

The documentation doesn't provide any details on how it works.

 


3 replies

Userlevel 2

Hey @pete j​! Daniel from Customer Support Engineering here 🔧 

 

After a user goes through a wait block, there can be an additional period of time before the user matches for the next block. Specifically, we'll check every 15 minutes if the user needs to progress through the block. For outbound content like a post, the user will have to be online and match the post's rules to receive it. I can see from your screenshot that 2 users have received the post, so it's likely that the technical implementation of your Series is okay. If you're having continuous issues getting the user to match the next block - and you've tried manually updating/logging out and in as the user to force the next block to try and fire - send us a message over the Messenger and we'll dig into your issue 😁

 

Hope this helps!

Daniel - thanks for getting back to me. "we'll check every 15 minutes if the user needs to progress through the block" - does this mean if a wait period is less than 15 mins it may not be triggered until the next check? So we have a 1-minute wait - does that mean it won't be checked every 1 minute?

Userlevel 2

It essentially means that the wait block will be executed, and then after, it can take up to 15 minutes for the check to match the next block to occur. So the time = 1 min + 1 - 15mins before the next block is matched.

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