Would you like a Thrive Action to run a little later, or only for the people who give the answer you want?
In this guide, we’ll walk you through adding a time delay and a condition to a Thrive Action on a form built with Thrive Architect. You can use either one on its own or combine them.
- Setting a Time Delay
- Adding a Condition
- Saving the Action
- Checking Why a Run Was Skipped
- When Delayed Actions Are Cancelled
- Frequently Asked Questions
Before you get started, make sure Thrive Architect is installed and activated on your WordPress site.
Your form also needs a Thrive Action. If you haven’t added one yet, see our guide on running Thrive Actions after a form submission.
The settings in this guide are in the window that opens when you add a new action or edit an existing one.
Setting a Time Delay
To get started, we’ll make the action wait before it fires.
By default, an action fires right after the form is submitted. To make it wait, switch on Time delay.
Under When should this fire?, type a number. Then open the unit list and choose minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months.
A delay suits follow-ups that belong later. For example, you could start an offer 2 days after someone joins your list.
Adding a Condition
A condition makes the action fire only when a form field matches the value you set. To add one, switch on Add a condition. Without a condition, the action fires for every submission.
Choosing the Form Field
The condition reads IF, then a field, a comparison, and a value. First, open the field list and choose the form field to check. The list shows the fields on your form by their labels.
Once the field is chosen, the comparison comes next.
Choosing How to Compare It
Next, open the comparison list. Fields where people type their answer, such as Name, Email, or Phone, offer 3 options:
- equals: the field must match your value exactly.
- does not equal: the action fires for every value except yours.
- contains: the field only needs to include your value. This option matches part of an entry, such as an email domain.
Finally, type the value to match. Matching ignores capitalization and extra spaces before or after the value. For example, “Gold” and “gold ” count as the same value.
Fields With a Set List of Choices
If your form has a dropdown, radio buttons, or checkboxes, the condition adapts to the field you pick:
- Instead of typing a value, you pick one of the field’s own choices from a list.
- The comparison list offers only equals and does not equal. The contains option isn’t offered because it could match the wrong choice, such as “Option A” inside “Option AB”.
- For a checkbox group, where several choices can be checked, the options read includes and does not include. The includes option matches when any checked choice is yours. The does not include option matches when none of them is.
Once the condition is set, you’re ready to save the action.
Saving the Action
Once you’ve set the delay, the condition, or both, check the summary at the bottom of the window. Then, click Continue.
The action appears as a card in the Thrive Actions tab. The card tells you when it fires and which condition it uses. To change either one later, click Edit on the card.
Then, click Save Work at the bottom of the left sidebar to save the page.
Your delay and condition are now saved with the page.
Checking Why a Run Was Skipped
The Submission Log shows what happened on each submission. To open it, click All logs at the top of the action list.
A run that is waiting on its delay shows as Scheduled. Opening it shows when it will fire. Once it has run, the row updates to Fired. When a condition stops an action, the run shows as Skipped. Opening the row shows the condition and the value that was submitted.
The note under a skipped run depends on what happened:
- If no value came through, it reads “No value was submitted – the field was left empty or is no longer on the form.” A field the person left blank counts as empty.
- If a does not equal condition skipped the run, it explains that the value is the one the rule excludes.
- Otherwise, it explains that the value didn’t match. It also reminds you that spacing and capitalization are ignored.
If a field used by a condition is later removed from the form, the action shows that the field was removed and doesn’t run. To fix it, edit the action and pick a field that’s still on the form, or switch the condition off.
When Delayed Actions Are Cancelled
A delayed action waits in a queue until its time comes. The changes below cancel the waiting runs:
- Removing or editing the action cancels its waiting runs.
- Moving the page that holds the form to the Trash, or deleting it, cancels the waiting runs of that page’s form.
- In Thrive Leads, moving a form to the Trash, archiving it, or deleting it cancels its waiting runs.
The Submission Log marks each cancelled run as skipped and says why. For example, it reads “The page was moved to the Trash before this run fired.”
Cancelled runs don’t come back. If you restore a page from the Trash, its form keeps its actions for new submissions.
That’s it! You now know how to make a Thrive Action wait for the time you choose and run only for the submissions you want. Next, learn how to run Thrive Actions after a form submission for the other actions you can add.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below, we’ve answered some of the most common questions about the condition and delay settings on a Thrive Action.
Can I use a delay and a condition together?
Yes. Both settings work in the same action. The card on the Thrive Actions tab shows the timing and the condition together. The condition is checked when the form is submitted. A run that fails the condition is skipped and never scheduled.
Do I need to match capitalization in a condition?
No. Matching ignores capitalization and extra spaces around the value.
What happens if the person left the field blank?
A blank field counts as empty. A condition that needs a value to match skips the run. The Submission Log tells you that no value was submitted.
What happens if I delete a field used in a condition?
The action doesn’t run until you fix the condition. To fix it, edit the action and pick a field that’s still on the form, or switch the condition off.
Do delayed actions still run if I move the page to the Trash?
No. Moving the page that holds the form to the Trash, or deleting it, cancels that form’s waiting runs. A page that only displays a form owned somewhere else, such as a form in a template, doesn’t cancel that form’s runs when it’s trashed.