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Manage paused interviews in production

The Setup, Paused and Waiting Interviews node is the operational view. Monitor weekly; cleanup quarterly.

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Founder & Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated May 21, 2026

The Setup, Paused and Waiting Interviews node is the operational view. Monitor weekly; cleanup quarterly.

  1. Open Paused and Waiting Interviews

    Setup, Quick Find, Paused and Waiting Interviews. The list shows every interview that persisted.

  2. Filter by flow and owner

    Group by flow name or owner to find the long-paused interviews. Stale interviews on a specific flow signal a screen flow that users abandon.

  3. Resume on behalf of users

    For interviews that should complete, click Resume. The flow opens at the paused element.

  4. Delete dead interviews

    For interviews that should not continue, delete them. Deletion is hard; the interview cannot resume after.

  5. Build automated cleanup

    Create a schedule-triggered flow that deletes FlowInterview rows older than the chosen retention threshold (commonly 60-90 days).

  6. Configure unhandled-fault email

    Setup, Process Automation Settings, set the unhandled-fault email recipient. Errors in interviews route to this address by default, instead of the running user.

Gotchas
  • Stale FlowInterview rows accumulate indefinitely without cleanup. Plan a recurring delete-old-interviews job.
  • Resuming an interview as a different user changes the running-user context, affecting record access for the rest of the run.
  • Bulk DML creates many interviews in one transaction. A flow that runs fine on single records can fail on bulk saves; test with at least 200 records.
  • The Apex Flow.Interview class runs flows in the calling transaction''s governor budget. Heavy Apex-invoked flows hit the same limits as direct Apex.

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