How do I track a step where we wait for a permit, a lender or an insurer?

Some steps wait on someone who is not on your team: a city issuing a permit, a lender approving a loan, an insurer answering a claim, a government office processing an application. Mark that job as waiting, and your journey keeps the step open until your team records the answer.

Turn it on

1. Open TMS, then Setup, then the Journey tab, and click "Edit journey".
2. Open the step. Under "Add a job to this step", pick Wait for an outside answer. Or open an existing job and turn on Waiting on someone outside.
3. Under "Who are you waiting on?", type who it is, for example "the city".
4. Under "Usually answers within", pick 2, 4, 8 or 12 weeks, or 6 months. For anything else pick "Custom days" and enter 1 to 365.
5. Publish the journey.

Turn the switch off to make it an ordinary job again.

What it does

The job is done by a person on your team. It shows on the customer's task list with its due date, counted from when the customer reaches the step, so you can see when the answer is usually due.

Why your customer does not see it

A job that waits on someone outside is always hidden from the customer, and they are never reminded about it. They are not the one who can speed it up, so a reminder would only worry them. That is also why the AI cannot do this job, and why it cannot ask the customer for documents, a payment or a signature at the same time. If you try, the editor tells you which one to change.

Tell the customer where things stand

Add a message to the step, so the customer hears from you when they reach it. For example: "We have applied for your permit. It usually takes about four weeks, and we will tell you the moment it is approved."

What your team sees

The job and its due date, with who you are waiting on in its summary line. When the answer comes, your team finishes the job as usual and the next step opens.

When they are late

Once the due date passes and the job is still open, the person who owns the job gets a notification the next morning: "Still waiting on the city: ...". They get another one each week until the job is finished. The job also shows in the Needs you list on the Workspace as "Waiting too long", and stays there until it is finished. A job with no owner gets no notification, but admins still see it in Needs you. If you have set up your own "task overdue" notification for your team, yours is used instead of this one.

Good to know

• A waiting job can take up to 365 days. Any other job is limited to 30 days.
• Who you are waiting on is up to 80 characters and cannot contain curly brackets.