How do deadlines work with weekends, holidays, reminders and escalation?

Short answer: Step deadlines skip the weekends and holidays set in Weekends and holidays. Add the deadline and its alerts on each step. A breached deadline sends alerts but doesn't stop or reassign the item, so use an integration if you need more.

Why it happens

• No weekend days are selected by default, so deadlines can land on a Saturday until a Super Admin sets the weekend.
• Holidays don't recur. Each year's list has to be added again.
• Each step has its own deadline, which starts when the item reaches that step.
• Deadlines can't be changed for an item that's already submitted.

How to fix it

Set non-working days:

1. Go to Account administration > Account settings > Weekends and holidays.
2. Select your weekend days and add holidays. See Weekends and holidays.

Add a deadline and alerts to a step:

1. In the process editor, click the step and click Add (+) in the Deadline section.
2. Under Allotted time, enter the duration in minutes, hours or days.
3. Click + Add an action, choose Notify or Escalate, pick the recipient (a user or a formula, such as the assignee's manager), and set a time between 30 minutes and 1 month, before or after the deadline. See Configuring deadline.

The assignee is notified by default as soon as the deadline is crossed.

For one deadline across several steps, add a Date-time field such as _submitted_at + 30 and use it for those steps.

To count working days in a formula, use dateDiff(date1, date2, "Day"). It skips weekends by default. To skip holidays too, add true() and a date list: dateDiff(date1, date2, "Day", true(), ["2026-12-25"]).

For custom emails or actions after a breach:

1. Create an integration with the trigger When an item crosses its deadline or When an item crosses its deadline at this step.
2. Add Send an email, or Approve an item to move the item on. The connection owner must be an assignee of that step.

For a reminder some days after a form date, use the Delay connector (up to 90 days), or a daily Scheduler that emails items whose date is today.