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A Wait Until on List step parks a person at the step until they’re on a Planning Center list you choose. Use it to hold someone until they’ve joined a group, completed a form’s list, or landed in any list that reflects the action you’re waiting on — then continue the automation automatically once they’re there. Unlike a Wait, which pauses for a set amount of time, a Wait Until on List pauses for a condition: it waits for the person, not the clock.

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Setting It Up

Add a Wait Until on List step and configure:
  • List to check — the Planning Center list the person needs to be on to continue.
  • Check daily at — the hour of day the daily membership check runs.
  • Timezone — the timezone that hour is measured in.
The step’s settings show a live Next check preview so you can see when the next daily check would happen. In the builder, Wait Until on List appears as an orange step with a clipboard-check icon.

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How Checking Works

  • Checked immediately on arrival. The moment a person reaches the step, we check the list. If they’re already on it, they continue right away with no wait.
  • Otherwise, checked once a day. If they aren’t on the list yet, we re-check once per day at the hour and timezone you picked.
  • Membership is checked live. Each check looks at Planning Center as it is right now — the same way an If / Else step does — so someone joining the list during the wait is respected on the next check.
  • People advance individually. Each person continues on their own, as soon as a daily check finds them on the list. There are no branches — everyone eventually moves on to the next step (or exits, below).

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When Someone Joins the List

As soon as a daily check finds the person on the list, they’re released from the step and continue to the next step in the automation. Because checks happen once a day, someone who joins the list will continue at the next daily check, not the instant they join.

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If the Condition Is Never Met

If a person still isn’t on the list after 400 daily checks — a bit over 13 months — they exit the automation. This is recorded on their step timeline so you can see they left because the condition was never met.

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If the List Access Is Lost

If the chosen list is deleted in Planning Center, or Flowforth loses access to it while people are waiting, the automation’s owners are notified by email and the affected people’s runs are marked failed — the same behavior as an If / Else step that can no longer read its list.

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Rules

  • You cannot place two Wait Until on List steps back-to-back. (A regular Wait next to a Wait Until on List is fine.)
  • The Wait step’s rules — like the 31-day maximum — do not apply to Wait Until on List.
Wait Until on List steps aren’t available on weekly and monthly (scheduled) triggers, which send once to the whole list rather than running per person.