Stop steps, or wait steps, allow you to set a workflow to pause until a specific task is completed. Any steps in a workflow following a wait step will not be generated on a lead or a process until the wait step is completed.

This setting can be set on certain steps or on all steps in a workflow (in which case the workflow would generate the tasks one at a time).

Use wait steps to:

Ensure you have filled out the correct custom fields before generating the next task (that task might be an auto-email or a step that has conditional logic based on the custom fields)
To ensure that all the steps are carried out in order
and much more!

Deactivate this setting on steps to:

Allow multiple steps to be generated if they can happen parallel to each other or in any order (the system will generate all the steps up till the next wait step).

To set this up, navigate to the process type settings. (Click into the process type your want to work on and click the gear icon in the top right). Click Stages & Workflows in the lefthand sidebar and choose a stage to edit.

Click the hand icon on the right of a step to set it as a wait step (or deactivate this setting for the step). If the icon is blue, this setting is active and that step is a wait step.

Here's how it works on a process. You can see how the first five steps in the workflow above have been generated, but since the fifth is a wait step, none of the future tasks beyond that wait step have been generated:

Once that task is completed, the next task(s) are generated for this process.

Using Stop Steps to Update Active Process Workflows

Oftentimes you have to update process workflows that are being actively used. Processes are never perfect and often need to be adapted to meet changes inside or outside your company.

Here's the important part to remember: Active processes will only receive updates you make to the workflow in that process type IF those updates are made to steps that the active processes have not yet reached.

For example, if an active Lease Renewal process has reached the step "Schedule inspection of property", any changes you make to steps that come before that step in the workflow will NOT apply to that active Lease Renewal process.

However, if "Schedule inspection of property" is a stop/wait step in the process and you make changes to the workflow steps that come after that step, those changes will be applied to the active Lease Renewal process once you complete "schedule inspection of property".