What it does
The scheduler covers everything that happens later: workflows that run on a clock, and workflows that pause partway through and pick up again hours or days afterwards.
Scheduled workflows and delays
- On a schedule — a trigger that starts a workflow at the times you set, with nobody on the site.
- Delay — a step that pauses a run, such as three days after a membership expires before inviting the member back.
How it works
Everything that waits goes through Action Scheduler, the job queue WordPress plugins have relied on for years. A delayed workflow does not hold a request open: its state is saved, and it resumes from exactly where it left off. The deadline is stored with the run rather than inferred from the queue, so if a job fires early, the delay simply waits out the remaining time.
Long workflows are split into bounded passes, so a large workflow never depends on a single PHP request surviving to the end — and a visitor never waits on your automation.
In practice
A member’s level ends → wait three days → email them an invitation to come back. Or: every morning → check an external service over HTTP → message the team if it is down.
Details
Scheduled triggers, delays and the advanced scheduler are on Personal and above.
