Date Triggered Auto-Emails

[SJEaton]

Hiya

This query may be a bit out there but was just wondering if it's possible to trigger a task based on when a certain date is hit?

In our recruitment process the request owner enters the start date of the new employee in a custom field (h_custom_a) in the details of the request once this date is known.  In an ideal world it would be awesome if an email that we send to the customer on this date could be automatically sent when this date comes.  Any idea if there is a way this could be possible?

Thanks

Sam

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your post.  There isn't an available feature that is designed to do this, but I will have a look at some of the options in the workflow to see if there is a way that this can be managed using existing BPM Nodes.  

Regards,

James

[SJEaton]

Thanks James

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Sam,

I haven't been able to find anything to work with taking a date from the custom field and have it send an email on that date.  The BPM nodes tend to work with time periods rather than specific dates as in the BPM so when an operation is run it may do something in X minutes, hours, days from the operation running.  There isn't anywhere to store a date or read a date from a custom field.

I will keep looking and see if there is anything we can come up with to help. 

Regards,

James

[SJEaton]

Ok James, thanks for the update and for your help on this.

Sam

[Victor]

@SJEaton when this was discussed internally, one of the suggestions was to have the request put on hold manually, by an analyst, until the Start Date. During this time the BP would be in a suspended state, waiting for the request to come off hold. When it does, the BP can send the email... would this work for you until we can find a better solution for this?

[SJEaton]

Hi @Victor, yes this could be a potential work around for the time being.  To confirm, if the analyst puts the request on hold manually and enters the start date as the date they want it to come off hold, we can then still have an auto-email in the BP that triggers when the request comes off hold right?

Sam

[Victor]

@SJEaton yes, this was my thought... So if the new employee start date is, let's say 01/10/2017, the analyst will put the request on hold until 01/10/2017. The BP at this point should be in a suspend state, wait for the request to come off hold. On 01/10 the request comes automatically off hold, at which point the BP will resume and continue with the next node which should be the email node...

[SJEaton]

Excellent, that sounds like a plan then, thanks