Non-blocking steps
If you want a process to run faster, you can decide to make a step non-blocking. Then, the workflow will continue before this step finishes.
Making the step non-blocking is useful when you know completion will take time because, for example, it asks the customer to collect some data. In such cases, it’s worth pushing the workflow forward and allowing the step to be completed in due time (especially if the next step doesn’t depend on the non-blocking step).
For example, if step 2 is non-blocking, then once step 1 is completed, both step 2 and step 3 are active.
By default, steps are blocking. Non-blocking steps are not optional.
Non-blocking steps are always used in the Complete step integration step if the data from this step is used to complete the following step. This is because you need the following step to be active.
A blocking step can be skipped. However, only process leads can skip steps.
To set a step to non-blocking:
- Click the step to open it.
- Click … on the right-hand side of the step’s name.
- Click Make non-blocking.
Step types and non-blocking option
If you add the non-blocking option:
- to a normal step -> the next step will activate without waiting for the step to complete
- to a parallel step -> the next step after the parallel step will activate without waiting for the parallel step to complete
- to a step inside a parallel step -> this will not have any effect because all steps in a parallel step activate at the same time
- to a group step -> the step after the group step will activate immediately. The steps inside the group step will remain sequential
- to a group step that’s nested inside a parallel step -> the step after the group step will activate immediately. The steps inside the group step will remain sequential