60.1 Postponed Processing
60.1.1 Overview ¶
Postponed processing causes the program not to process an incoming email immediately, but only after a configurable waiting period. Useful when you want to give recipients the opportunity to answer or sort the mail manually before the profile takes effect.
Typical use case: An auto-reply should only be sent automatically if the mail has not been processed manually after 30 minutes. Or an order confirmation should only be sent after one hour, in case no cancellation arrives from the customer by then.
60.1.2 Configuration in the profile ¶
In the profile settings on the General page, section Postponed Processing (see chapter 8.7.8), you will find the settings:
| Field |
Description |
| Postpone processing |
Enables the postponement for this profile |
| Waiting period |
Numeric value (e.g. 30) |
| Time unit |
Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months or Years |
| Keep waiting for status criteria not yet met once the delay has elapsed |
If the filter fails only because of status criteria when the delay has elapsed, the message remains postponed and is checked again (see section 60.1.8, since version 4.12.0) |
| at most ... days |
Longest waiting time beyond the due time, default 2 days |
Default: When enabled: 5 minutes.
Note: The waiting period starts at the time the mail was received, not when the program first sees it. A mail that is already one hour old when the program is just being started is processed immediately - the waiting period has already elapsed.
60.1.3 Management dialog ¶
Via the Manage Postponed Processings... button in the toolbar of the log area, a master-detail dialog opens that shows all currently waiting mails - grouped by profile and with a detail view per mail.
| Function |
Effect |
| List of waiting mails |
Per entry: profile, subject, sender, time received, scheduled processing time |
| Cancel |
Remove selected entries from the list - the mail is not processed |
Important: Triggering the processing early is not possible - either the mail waits until the scheduled time, or it is cancelled.
60.1.4 Interaction with other tasks ¶
If a profile with postponed processing simultaneously has another profile that moves or deletes the mail, conflicts may occur - the mail is no longer in the monitored folder when the postponement period ends.
The program detects such move/delete conflicts during profile import and warns (see Chapter 40.25.5).
60.1.5 Safe cleanup chain (save first, then move/delete) ¶
A common setup spreads an incoming mail across several profiles that take effect one after another:
- Save (immediately): save the email as PDF and as an EML file.
- Move (e.g. after 24 hours): move the mail into a folder such as
Sales to keep the inbox tidy.
- Delete (e.g. after 2 weeks): permanently remove the mail from the move target folder.
The risk: Steps 2 and 3 depend only on the waiting period, not on the success of step 1. If saving fails (e.g. the target directory is unreachable), the unsaved mail is still moved and later deleted - it is lost without a copy ever having been created.
The solution: a marker as proof of success. The save profile sets a marker only on success, and the downstream profiles only let mails through that carry this marker. Place the marker task in the save profile last - after all save tasks. If a save task fails, the profile's following tasks are no longer executed, so the marker is set only on complete success.
There are two ways to set the marker:
Option 1 - marker (flag). Add Set marker as the last task and give the move profile and the delete profile each a message filter that only lets marked (flagged) emails through. The simplest way, without further options. Suitable as long as nobody else flags these mails by hand - otherwise mails flagged by someone else could be moved by mistake.
Option 2 - subject prefix. Add Add subject prefix as the last task (e.g. [OK]). Give the move and delete profiles a subject filter "Subject begins with [OK] " and enable the option "Evaluate value only when the delay has elapsed" on that criterion (at the bottom of the criterion editor, available only for the subject). Advantage: the marker is set by the program and is independent of an accidental manual flag by other people.
Important for both options: The saving profile must not have the option Stop processing after this profile (General area, see chapter 8.7.6) enabled. Otherwise processing of the mail ends after saving, and the move and delete profiles are never even queued for their waiting period; the log entry of the saving profile then shows "Processing stopped" with the profiles that were not checked. When you save such a follow-up profile, the program points out earlier stop profiles with the same folders from version 4.13.0.
Important for option 2: Also keep at least one subject filter without this option (your actual selection filter, e.g. "Subject contains Order sold:"). Otherwise the postponed profile would be queued for every mail in the folder, which can slow down processing noticeably.
An unsaved mail therefore receives no marker, is never moved and never deleted. It stays visible in the inbox, where the problem is noticed and can be repeated.
Why the option "Evaluate value only when the delay has elapsed" is needed: While a profile's waiting period is still running, the program only checks at intake whether the mail generally belongs in the queue. A subject filter is normally checked strictly right away - but the prefix is not yet set at that point, so the profile would never even be queued. The option defers exactly this one criterion until the mail becomes due; by then the prefix is present and is checked strictly. (Criteria on read, replied, flagged, category, message copy or related processing are treated this way automatically anyway, because they typically only change after receipt.)
Why a marker on the mail and not an internal processing detection? Both the flag and the subject prefix live on the email at the mailbox provider and are therefore independent of the program's internal state - they stay reliable even if you later let only a single profile catch up, or set the program up again.
60.1.6 Use case ¶
Auto-reply with grace period
Profile with task Reply and 30 minutes of postponement. Incoming customer inquiries are not answered automatically for 30 minutes - if a manual reply is sent during this time, the user can cancel the automatic reply via the management dialog.
60.1.7 Tip ¶
- The waiting period starts at the time the mail was received, not at the moment the program first sees it - important after longer program pauses
60.1.8 Keep waiting for status criteria after the delay has elapsed ¶
Normally the program checks the message filter once and conclusively when the delay has elapsed. Status criteria such as read, replied, flagged, category, message copy or related processing are evaluated with their state at that time; if the filter does not match, the message counts as "no match" for this profile and is not checked again.
Some workflows, however, depend on an event whose time is not fixed, such as removing a flag after a reply or creating a copy in a filing folder. For these, version 4.12.0 adds the option Keep waiting for status criteria not yet met once the delay has elapsed, at most N days (default 2 days) below the waiting period:
- If the filter fails only because of status criteria when the delay has elapsed, the message remains postponed and is checked again with fresh state in every run. As soon as the criteria are met, it is processed.
- Status criteria are read, replied, flagged, category, message copy and related processing (from version 4.13.0, see chapter 30.22), the date criterion "older than", and subject criteria with the option "Evaluate value only when the delay has elapsed", i.e. exactly the criteria that are treated as met on receipt. Exception from version 4.13.0: "Message copy exists in" with a monitored folder, see chapter 30.20.5.
- If the filter fails because of another criterion, such as the subject or sender, the message immediately counts as "no match".
- If the waiting period expires without the criteria being met, the message conclusively counts as "no match".
In the Postponed Processing tab of the log list and in the management dialog, waiting messages show the end of the waiting period with the note "waiting for status criteria". Waiting messages can be cancelled there like other postponements.
Note: Waiting messages are checked again in every run. If the header data already shows that the filter still does not match, for example because the flag is still set, the message is not downloaded from the server again. A "message copy" criterion triggers the search in the filing folder only if the other criteria are met. Still, keep the waiting period as short as the workflow allows. A worked example can be found in chapter 30.20.
60.1.9 Copies in several monitored folders ¶
If the same message is located in several monitored folders, for example because you copied it manually into several filing folders, the program keeps a separate log entry with its own postponement per folder as of version 4.13.0. Each copy is processed in its folder, appears individually on the "Postponed Processing" tab and is processed individually when due, for example by a profile "Delete after one month" that monitors several folders. The postponement of the original in its folder remains unaffected, and presenting the same copy again does not trigger a second processing.