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SLA clock pause while ticket status is "Waiting on contact"

One of 565 written HubSpot workflow specs, by a collective of independent HubSpot consultants.

Professional

Seat pricing: Professional edition. To build it, a GTM Seat or an Ops Seat (an Ops Seat cannot create marketing emails or sequences). Per-hub plans: Service Hub Professional.

6 steps
Per-hub plans: also Marketing Hub Professional

On per-hub plans, one of its steps belongs to another subscription: add to static list needs Marketing Hub Professional. Both are required to build it as written. On seat pricing the edition covers both.

Updated for HubSpot seat pricing
OutcomeTime spent waiting on the customer to reply stops counting against the team's SLA, and the portal keeps a visible record of how long each waiting period actually lasted, instead of the clock (or the team's sense of how long they took) treating that time as their own delay.
Workflow maptickets-sla-020
Ticket status = Waiting on contact leads to Stamp waiting_on_contact_since. Stamp waiting_on_contact_since leads to Increment waiting_on_contact_rounds. Increment waiting_on_contact_rounds leads to Wait until event: status changes away - expires in 30 days. Wait until event: status changes away - expires in 30 days leads to status changed: End - normal path, native SLA pause already applied while waiting; expired, still waiting: Add to Long-waiting tickets - review list. status changed expired, still waiting Ticket status = Waiting on contact Stamp waiting_on_contact_since Increment waiting_on_contact_rounds Wait until event: status changes away - expires in 30 days End - normal path, native SLA pause already applied while waiting Add to Long-waiting tickets - review list
Ticket status = Waiting on contact leads to Stamp waiting_on_contact_since. Stamp waiting_on_contact_since leads to Increment waiting_on_contact_rounds. Increment waiting_on_contact_rounds leads to Wait until event: status changes away - expires in 30 days. Wait until event: status changes away - expires in 30 days leads to status changed: End - normal path, native SLA pause already applied while waiting; expired, still waiting: Add to Long-waiting tickets - review list. status changed expired, still waiting Ticket status = Waiting on contact Stamp waiting_on_contact_since Increment waiting_on_contact_rounds Wait until event: status changes away - expires in 30 days End - normal path, native SLA pause already applied while waiting Add to Long-waiting tickets - review list

One of 565 written HubSpot workflow specs, by a collective of independent HubSpot consultants.

When to use it, when not to

Use it

  • Use it once your ticket pipeline stages are mapped to HubSpot's ticket status categories (Open, Waiting on contact, Waiting on us, Closed), since the actual SLA pause is a native platform behavior tied to that category, not something a workflow creates from scratch.
  • Use it when the team wants visibility into how much time tickets actually spend waiting, for coaching or process review, on top of the native pause.
Read more on when to use itShow less

Skip it

  • Do not use it expecting this workflow to be what pauses the SLA; if your pipeline stages are not mapped to the "Waiting on contact" status category, no amount of workflow logic recreates that native pause, fix the pipeline mapping first (check in your portal: confirm current status category configuration path, Settings > Objects > Tickets > Pipelines, or the newer Help Desk pipeline settings).
  • Do not use it if you have no interest in reporting on waiting time; the native pause already happens on its own regardless of whether this workflow exists.
Read more on when to skip itShow less

The rest of this spec

Prerequisites · 4 items

Every property with its label, internal name, type and options, plus the assets the workflow needs.

Enrollment · 4 parts

The trigger, the criteria as ticked in the UI, the re-enrollment rule and the suppression list.

Steps · 6 numbered actions

Each action in order with its parameters, branches and delays.

Known pitfalls · 5

Traps seen in production, each with what breaks and what to do instead.

Test plan and UAT script · 4 cases, 3 variants

How to prove it works in a test portal, one case per branch, and a sign-off sheet.

Files · PDF, Markdown, JSON, CSV

The properties JSON creates the fields in one call. The workflow JSON documents the build.

Install · 1 click, switched off

The installer creates the properties and the workflow, switched off, then opens a task for what it cannot create. Nothing is deleted, enabled or enrolled.

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