Pausing Automations

Pausing an automation in Bullhorn Automation allows you to temporarily stop its execution without deleting it. Whether you need to pause an automation manually or rely on Auto Pause functionality, this feature helps manage your active automations effectively.

Ways to Pause an Automation:

  • Manually Pause an Automation: Open the automation from the Automation List, click Pause Automation, and confirm your selection. You can restart it anytime by clicking Turn on Automation.

  • Auto Pause: Some automations may pause automatically based on system triggers or conditions.

When an automation is auto-paused, you must manually turn the automation back on once you've finished making your changes.

Manually Pausing an Automation

If you need to pause an automation, you can do so quickly from the Automation List. This is useful when you want to temporarily stop an automation but plan to resume it later.

Steps to Manually Pause an Automation

  • Navigate to the Automation List and find the automation you want to pause.

  • Click on the automation to open its details.

  • Select the Pause Automation button.

  • A confirmation pop-up will appear.

    • Click Yes to confirm or No to cancel.

The automation will now be paused and will not execute any further actions until resumed.

Auto-Pause Triggers

When you modify a live automation, it will be paused automatically to prevent any issues that could be caused by making changes while it is active.

The following actions will trigger your automations to auto-pause:

  • Editing the automation enrollment.
  • Editing the automation settings.
  • Editing a list within an active automation.
  • Adding, editing or deleting a step within an automation.

Automations will be auto-paused when:

  • They have been inactive for 60+ days.
    • An automation is inactive when no records have passed through it for 60 days, or no step activities have occurred in 60 days. Email notifications are sent on Saturdays to all Automation admins with hyperlinks to automations paused for inactivity within the last week.
  • You click Save on the edit page, even if you didn't make any modifications. To avoid triggering the auto-pause when you haven't made changes, click Cancel instead.

Paused Automations

When an automation is paused, a blue Automation Paused message will appear at the top of the page and a Turn On Automation button will display.

When a non-date based automation with a wait step is paused, the wait step recalculates the execution time to account for the pause duration. It doesn't track time actively but instead calculates when the record should proceed based on its entry time and the pause duration.

Wait steps don’t track time actively; instead, they calculate an execution time based on when a record enters the step.

  • A contact or candidate is 15 days into a 90-day wait step when the automation is paused.
  • When the automation is reactivated, they will resume from where they left off, with 75 days remaining in the wait step.

If you are making changes to a tearsheet in a paused automation, we recommend waiting an hour before turning the automation back on to ensure the tearsheet has time to sync.

Here is a video of the feature in action: