Workspace Studio is Google's tool for building flows: each flow begins with a starter, such as When I get an email or When a sheet changes, then runs steps in Gmail, Sheets, Chat and other apps. Google says sequences that needed a delay, such as a follow-up email a few days after a customer meeting, previously had to be split across separate scheduled flows. Full rollout of Wait until to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains began November 9, and Google says it can take one to three days to appear.

Eligible editions are Business Starter, Standard and Plus; Enterprise Standard and Plus; and Education Fundamentals, Standard and Plus, along with some add-ons, such as AI Expanded Access. Google says there is no admin control for the step itself. If Workspace Studio is missing altogether, Google's access page says your admin must enable Gemini on your account.

Google lists one personal setting as required, Smart features in Google Workspace. In Gmail, open Settings, click See all settings, and on the General tab click Manage Workspace smart feature settings, turn it on and click Save. Google's troubleshooting guide adds that some flows will not start unless both Smart features and Google Workspace smart features are on in Gmail settings.

How the wait is set

Wait until is one of the Logic & Tools steps, with Check if, Filter a list and Repeat for each, and Google says it can pause a flow at any point, including inside a Check if branch or a Repeat for each loop. Google's help page says a flow can wait for a maximum of 14 days. There are three ways to set the wait, each with a Time zone field:

  • Specific day next week resumes on the Day of week you pick, Monday through Sunday, at the Time of day you pick.
  • Specific day and time resumes after the Days to wait you set, from 0 to 13, at a chosen Time of day.
  • Set duration waits for a Number of Hours, Minutes or Seconds, chosen under Unit, up to 14 days in total.

Later steps can use the timing itself. Click + Variables, or type @ in a text field, and choose Wait start time, Wait end time or Wait time in seconds, for example to tell a recipient how long a request has been waiting. While a run is paused, the Activity tab in Workspace Studio shows Waiting until with the scheduled time and time zone, then Flow resumed on once the run continues.

Pick the wait that fits the deadline

The options differ in what they count from. Set duration counts from when the run reaches the step, and its largest unit is Hours, so a 48-hour wait on a request logged at 4:50 PM Tuesday resumes at 4:50 PM Thursday. Specific day and time, with Days to wait at 2 and Time of day at 9:00 AM, resumes the same request at 9:00 AM Thursday, which usually suits a reminder better.

Use these rules of thumb:

  • Choose Set duration for short, relative delays, such as giving a colleague four hours before a nudge.
  • Choose Specific day next week for work that should wait until a particular weekday, like Google's example of continuing next Monday at 8 AM.
  • Set the Time zone field to the zone of the people reading the message, not the person building the flow.
  • For anything longer than 14 days, use the On a schedule starter, which runs at a set start date and time and then repeats, to check the tracker regularly.
  • Whichever option you pick, check the Waiting until time on your first test runs, since the resume date depends on the day each run reaches the step.

Recheck the request after the pause

Treat anything the flow learned before the pause as out of date. After the wait, add a step that reads the record again, such as Get sheet contents, which returns the latest values only from rows that match the conditions you set, as one Matching values variable per column. Then add a Check if step so the flow continues only when the status still needs action. That keeps a reminder from reaching someone who already replied.

In Google's guide to conditional steps, each Check if condition has three parts: a variable from an earlier step, an operator such as is or is not, and a value to compare against. You can join conditions with AND or OR but cannot mix the two in one check, and since Check if steps can be nested, put a second Check if inside the first when you need both. Steps placed under Check if run only when its conditions match, while steps after it at the top level of the flow run every time.

One rule catches people out: variables created inside a Check if branch cannot be used in main-flow steps. Keep the Get sheet contents step in the main flow, before the Check if, so the check and everything under it can use what it read.

A worked example

Imagine a ten-person accounting office where the office manager logs requests awaiting a partner's approval in her own tracker sheet and updates a Status column as partners decide. Row 1 holds the column names Request ID, Request, Partner email, Status and Reminded, starting in cell A1, each unique and in its own unmerged cell, as Workspace Studio requires. She keeps the sheet private, because Google's troubleshooting guide says the Add a row, Update rows and Clear rows steps work only with spreadsheets that are private to you or not shared with anyone.

Her flow starts with When a sheet changes. By default that starter watches all rows and new values in any column, so she sets Select columns to watch to Request ID: a new request starts a run, while status edits and the flow's own writes to Reminded do not. The steps follow in this order:

  • Wait until, using Specific day and time, with Days to wait at 2, Time of day at 9:00 AM and the office's time zone.
  • Get sheet contents, with a condition that Request ID is the Latest values "Request ID" variable from the starter.
  • Check if, testing whether Matching values "Status" is Pending.
  • Inside the Check if, Send a message to the Matching values "Partner email" variable as a Google Chat direct message.
  • Also inside the Check if, Update rows, using Find rows to update to match the Request ID and Set new values by column to put Yes in Reminded.

The message reads, for example, "Request 1042 is still Pending in the approvals tracker. It has been waiting since" followed by the Wait start time variable. A request decided on day one ends quietly at the Check if, and the Reminded column shows which requests needed a nudge. For a reminder to herself instead, Notify me in Chat sends a direct message only to her, through a Chat app named after the flow.

Common mistakes and how to spot them

Most problems surface as an extra reminder, a missing one or an error in the Activity tab:

  • Leaving Select columns to watch at its default, which watches every column, can start several runs for one request as its cells are filled in, and each run that still finds it Pending sends a reminder.
  • Pasting several requests at once starts one run for all of them, because Google groups changes made at the same time, so enter requests one at a time.
  • Correcting a mistyped Request ID starts a new run with a fresh wait, so any reminder for that request comes two days after the correction.
  • Sharing the tracker after the flow is built makes the write steps fail with the error "Couldn't update the file because it's shared with others", and sheets that use IMPORTRANGE fail even when private.
  • Merging header cells, duplicating a column name or leaving one blank can cause the error "Couldn't get column names from row 1".
  • Reusing a Request ID makes Get sheet contents return a list and makes Update rows change every matching row, so keep IDs unique.
  • A flow that has not run in six months turns itself off with the message "Flow was automatically turned off because it hasn't run in 6 months", so open My flows, click the flow and select Turn on.

Test with a short wait and mock requests

Google warns that a test run does real actions, such as sending messages, setting up calendar events and changing docs. Build the flow against a copy of the tracker and address the Send a message step to yourself rather than to a variable that could include other people, as Google's test-run guide recommends.

Set Wait until to Set duration with a wait of a few minutes, then click Test run to catch setup problems. Google says a red Test complete message points to a problem with the flow's setup, such as a missing required field, and a yellow Test couldn't complete message points to a problem with the data the test is trying to use.

Then turn the flow on and enter four mock requests, one at a time:

  • Leave the first one Pending, which should produce one reminder.
  • Mark the second one approved during the wait, which should produce none.
  • Correct a typo in the third one's Request ID during the wait, to see what a second run looks like.
  • Delete the fourth row during the wait, to see how a run handles a record that no longer exists.

Before switching to the real wait and recipients, confirm:

  • The Activity tab shows Waiting until with the date, time and time zone you expect.
  • Each run then shows Flow resumed on at that time.
  • The first request produced one reminder and set its Reminded cell, and the second and fourth produced no reminder.
  • The third request shows two runs, and only the run for the corrected ID sent a reminder.
  • Expanding a run's details lists its steps, so you can see whether the steps under Check if ran.
  • No approval request is waiting for you in Google Chat.

When you make the switch, click Save changes. Google says edits to a flow that is turned on are saved but not applied until you do. Afterwards, read the Waiting until date on the first real request logged late in the week to see whether reminders could land on a weekend.

Record who owns each flow

A flow runs under one person's account, and Google's admin log guide says its actions in Google services are logged with that owner as the actor. Only the owner receives the flow's approval requests, as a Google Chat direct message named after the flow, a red badge on the Workspace Studio icon in the Gmail and Chat side panel, and a banner at the top of the Studio home page.

Sharing works only inside your organization and gives colleagues a copy; they cannot edit your original or see its run history. The copy carries your latest setup, including files, text and email addresses, and anyone with the link sees your email address as the flow creator. Turning a flow off stops it immediately, including in-progress runs, so check the tracker for pending requests before you turn one off or hand it over.

Keep a list of each flow, its owner, who it messages, which files it reads or writes and when it last ran, and review it when staff change roles or leave. Google's admin log lists Account deleted among the reasons a flow is turned off, so hand over a departing person's flows before their account is removed.

To hand one over, open it, click Get a link to copy, change the permission from Private to Anyone in your organization with the link can make a copy, then click Copy link and send it. Before relying on the copy, the colleague checks every recipient and file in it, because Google's troubleshooting guide warns that a copy of someone else's flow may not let them select the original person, who then shows as Selection not available. A flow that writes to a sheet also needs a tracker that only the new owner can access, since the write steps fail on a shared file. Approvals in their copy go to them, and you turn yours off.

Google's limits page says you can create a maximum of 25 flows, a count that includes flows that are turned off, so turning old test flows off does not make room. Deleting a flow is permanent and cannot be undone.

Runs count too. Google's usage limits page gives a typical limit of 400 flow executions per month on Business Standard and Plus and Enterprise Standard and Plus, resetting on the first of the month at 12:00 AM Pacific time. The limits page adds a daily run limit for all of your flows combined, and once you reach it your active flows stop running until it resets. Narrowing Select columns to watch keeps one request to one run.

What an administrator can see and stop

Workspace Studio settings sit under Menu, then Apps, then Google Workspace, then Workspace Studio in the Admin console, and changing them needs the Service Settings administrator privilege. Service status turns Studio on or off for everyone or by organizational unit, and an access group can turn it on for a set of users. Google says changes can take up to 24 hours. Turning Studio off for someone stops the active flows they own immediately.

The Workspace Studio log events, under Menu, then Reporting, then Audit and investigation, record events such as Pause run, Resume run and Turn off, with a turn-off reason. Filters include Actor, Flow name and Flow ID, and searches show the last seven days by default.

Google's admin setup guide includes three precautions worth copying: a child organizational unit with Studio turned off, so moving someone into it stops all of their flows at once; an alert rule that fires when Start run events exceed 100 in one hour; and flow sharing limited to trusted organizational units and groups. To stop a single flow, the guide says to ask the owner to turn it off, or to use an investigation tool to get its Flow ID and give that to Google Workspace support.

Before you use it with clients

Rerun the closed-during-the-wait test with a mock client request first. A client reminder would usually be a Gmail step such as Send an email, and Google's admin guide says steps that share data outside your organization fall under the Sensitive steps approval setting on the Workspace Studio page of the Admin console. Sensitive steps defaults to Let user decide, which Google says currently behaves the same as Always: users must approve each step manually. The third option, Never, auto-approves those steps and removes the human check.

When a step needs approval, the run pauses before it until the owner responds. In Google Chat, a green button names the action, such as Send email, and Reject skips the step. The approvals page in Workspace Studio filters requests by Pending, Approved, Rejected, Expire soon and Expired, so agree who will watch for requests before a client message depends on one.

Another way to keep a person in the loop is the Draft an email step, which Google describes as drafting an email reply for you to review and send later. Name the flow with care either way, because Google says email sent by a flow lists the flow's name as the sender, followed by "for" and your name.

Short answers to the next questions

Existing flows can take a wait. Open the flow, click Add step, move the new step into place from its More menu with the up arrow, then click Save changes if the flow is on.

Recipients do not need Workspace Studio. Google says people whose access is turned off can still get messages, calendar invites and updates to shared files they own through someone else's flow.

You can check activity without leaving Gmail. Click the Workspace Studio icon at the top right of Gmail or Chat to open its side panel, where the Activity tab confirms whether your flows ran and the My Flows tab shows which are active and lets you turn them off.

What to do this week

  • Open Workspace Studio and check that Wait until appears among the Logic & Tools steps.
  • If Workspace Studio is missing, ask your administrator to check your edition, Service status and Gemini access.
  • List every flow with its owner, recipients, files and last run, and look for pairs of scheduled flows that one flow with a wait could replace.
  • Build one internal reminder against a copy of your tracker and run the four mock requests above.
  • Before any client-facing flow goes live, have your administrator review Sensitive steps, the sharing settings and a Start run alert.

Where ALCO can help

ALCO's Google Workspace service covers administration of Gmail, Drive, Calendar and the admin console, including onboarding and offboarding. ALCO's development work includes automation, and its user training covers practical technology and security training for staff. The ALCO help desk is staffed 24 hours a day, including holidays, and calls are answered by a person.

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