Automation Auto Pause

Learn how Bullhorn Automation’s Auto-Pause feature helps maintain workflow accuracy by temporarily halting automations when critical changes are made to lists or automation settings. This guide explains when and why automations are automatically paused, how to identify paused workflows, and the steps to resume them. By leveraging Auto-Pause, you can prevent errors and ensure your automations continue running smoothly and effectively after updates.

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

Automation 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. This article explains how the Auto Pause feature works. If you prefer to manually pause your automation, that is also an option.

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: