Anchor Wait Steps to a Date with the Event Start Date Action

The Event Start Date action sets a reference date and time inside your workflow. Later Wait steps can then count relative to that moment, such as "send a reminder 2 days before" or "follow up 1 week after", instead of counting from when the contact entered.

Choose a type

• Specific Date/Time: an exact moment picked from a calendar, for example 14 September at 10:30 AM. Best for one-time events.
• Custom Field: reads the date from a contact field such as "Event Registration Date". Best when each contact has a different date.
• Specific Day: uses the current day of the month or week as the reference. Best for repeating tasks, such as a reminder on the first of every month.

Set it up

1. Open your workflow and click + where the timing should be anchored.
2. Choose Event Start Date.
3. Name it, for example "Webinar start".
4. Pick the Type.
5. For Custom Field, select the date field. For Specific Date/Time, choose the date and time. For Specific Day, choose day-of-month or day-of-week.
6. Save.
7. Add Wait steps afterward and set them to count before or after the event date.

Example: webinar reminders

1. Trigger: Form Submitted on the webinar registration form.
2. Event Start Date using the "Webinar Date" custom field.
3. Wait until 1 day before the event, then send a reminder email.
4. Wait until 1 hour before, then send a text with the join link.
5. Wait until 1 day after, then send the replay.

Tips

• Make sure date fields hold valid dates; badly formatted values cause timing errors.
• Think about time zones. Confirm the workflow uses the contact's or your business time zone as intended.
• Test with a date a few minutes ahead to watch the waits behave.
• If the date is in the past, later "before the event" waits cannot fire.

Good to know: Setting the event date in its own step keeps your timing logic visible and easy to edit later.