Pausing WalkMe with Wait For Conditions

A Wait For Condition can be added anywhere in a Smart Walk-Thru. When WalkMe gets to the Wait For Condition, the Smart Walk-Thru will wait to play the next step until a certain number of seconds have passed or the associated rule(s) is/are True.

The figure shows a Wait For Condition in the WalkMe Editor.

Wait For Conditions can be necessary for making the user experience feel more smooth and to make sure Smart Walk-Thru steps play at the correct pace.

While it won't be part of our initial build, a Wait For is usually added as a troubleshooting tactic when we notice something not functioning ideally.

For example, we don't want our Smart Walk-Thru steps to preemptively play when the user hasn't even reached the next step yet! It's is also commonly used when the page loads too fast, and WalkMe doesn't have the time to detect the element which might cause the Smart Walk-Thru to stop.

The figure shows how the Enter Quantity step is playing too quickly, causing it to cover drop-down selection.

Next, we'll go through a scenario on our Eddie's Depot platform. In this scenario, our previously built Split Step is evaluating too fast, causing our guidance in the Yes branch to not play correctly. Because of this, our Split Step, which was created to reduce user confusion, is now causing more confusion because it isn't evaluating properly.

To resolve this confusion, we'll add a Wait For Condition to our Smart Walk-Thru to pause WalkMe so that it may evaluate our Split Step more accurately.

When creating Wait For Conditions, we can choose to wait for a specific amount of time, or to wait until certain page conditions are met using the Condition Builder.

As a best practice, we generally recommend using a timed condition for processes that include Auto-Steps. Automation can be fast. Sometimes too fast. Wait For Conditions help WalkMe slow down and give the platform a bit more time to load properly before moving on.

The figure shows the best practices for Wait For Conditions.

Naming our Wait For Conditions is an important step in the WalkMe building process. These steps can be based on time or conditions established by us in the Condition Builder.

Something like conditions Wait for the Success Page URL tells us, as Builders, exactly what we need to know about this Wait For Conditions and helps us maintain our content more efficiently.

The figure shows the step for Wait For Conditions.

Great job! Now that we've covered Split Steps and Wait For Condition, we'll show how we can speed up processes with automation!