How to Use the Delay Tool in Bit Flows to Automate Timely Actions

In this documentation, we will guide you on how to use the Delay Tool in Bit Flows to automate time-based actions effectively. We will demonstrate setting up a workflow where the trigger is an Elementor Form submission and the action is to store the submitted data in Google Sheets, but with a delay before the data is sent.

After reading this guide, you will understand how to configure the Delay Tool to introduce a wait time in your workflows. This can be helpful for tasks like scheduled data processing, delayed notifications, or controlled automation sequences.

By the end of this setup, you will have a workflow where the Elementor Form submission data is sent to Google Sheets after a specified delay. This ensures precise timing and smoother management of your automated tasks.

Add Delay Tool to a Workflow

Open or Create a Workflow

To add a Delay Tool to your flow, you can either open an existing workflow or create a new one by setting up your trigger and actions. Refer to this documentation to learn how to create a workflow.

For this example, we already have a workflow named “ElementorFormToSheets.” We will add a Delay Tool to this flow to introduce a wait time before the data from Elementor Form submissions is sent to Google Sheets. This ensures actions occur at the right time as per your requirements.

Add Delay to Your Flow

To add a Delay Tool to your flow, first navigate to the “Tools” section located next to “Apps.” In the Tools menu, you will find several tools. Drag the “Delay” tool and drop it into your flow at the desired point.

Congratulations! You have successfully added a delay to your flow.

Link with the Delay Tool

To connect the Delay Tool with the trigger (in this case, Elementor Form), follow these steps:

1. Unlink any existing connection, if any.
2. Connect the Elementor Form trigger to the Delay Tool.

This ensures that after a successful form submission in Elementor Form, the workflow will pause for the specified delay time before proceeding to the next action, like sending data to Google Sheets.

Configure the Delay

To set up the Delay Tool, click on the clock icon. This will open a popup where you can configure the delay settings:

1. Execution Delay Time: Enter the duration for which you want to delay the workflow.
2. Time Unit: Choose the delay unit from the dropdown options—Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, or Months.

For this example, we will select a delay of 1 minute. After 1 minute, the Elementor form’s submitted data will be sent to the preferred action, such as Google Sheets. This ensures a controlled execution timing for your workflow.

Testing the Flow: Verifying Timed Action with Delay Tool

After setting up the Delay tool in your workflow, it’s important to test the flow to ensure that the delay is functioning as expected. Here’s how you can verify the data submission with the delay in place:

1. Link and Configure the Action: If you haven’t already, link and configure your action. For this example, I will configure Google Sheets and map the fields accordingly.
2. Test Flow Once: After configuring the action, click on “Test Flow Once” to test the entire workflow.
3. Run the Trigger: Trigger the event, which in this case is the “Elementor Forms New Record” submission.
4. Verify the Delay: Ensure that after the specified delay time (e.g., 1 minute), the data is routed and processed in the preferred action, such as sending data to Google Sheets.
5. Check the Logs: Once the test is complete, check the logs in Bit Flows to verify if the data was correctly received.
6. Verify in Google Sheets: Finally, after the delay, verify that the data has been correctly transferred to Google Sheets.

By following these steps, you can confirm that the delay works properly and the workflow is triggered and executed as expected.