Drastic Changes in Wait Step for PDF-generating Bot

[Zach_Ford]

Hello,

I have an app automation that Generates a PDF any time a new parent record is created. The PDF is a template working from a parent record with a start expression referencing child records (image below).

I did some research beforehand to find out why the child records were not populating so I added a Wait step to allow the child records to save before the automation triggers. This works great and retrieves all of the records once the automation completes.

However, I have a problem with the Wait step. Even though the Wait period is set to 5 minutes, it will often take an hour or more before the pdf is created and added into the default drive folder (See below).

My question: is there a way to ensure the pdf is generated within a closer timeframe (or at least a predictable amount of time)? Does it have anything to do with the app not being deployed? 
Any and all insight is appreciated,

Best,

Zach F

[SkrOYC]

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@Zach_Ford wrote:

My question: is there a way to ensure the pdf is generated within a closer timeframe (or at least a predictable amount of time)?

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Example automations - AppSheet Help

[Zach_Ford]

Hey SkrOYC,

Thank you for the link. I did see this help page before you sent it, and there seems to be a few issues with automating this way with regard to my data. For one, my child table must have multiple references and therefore cannot include "is a part of" ref columns.

However, my question really pertains to the Wait action. If the wait action can be set to 5 minutes, what good is it if it takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 1/2 hours? I can imagine the smaller the change the better, but wouldn't it then show that the time between wait -> generate is longer than between create -> wait?

[SkrOYC]

Well, my answer goes more in the lines of "a wait step is not the right solution".
Maybe if you explain your setup a little bit better we could provide with a more in dept suggestion

[Landan_QREW]

How are the child records being generated? You may be able to make a modification to this flow where a server-side pause is not necessary.

[Zach_Ford]

Thank you both for your responses. I've opted to have the PDF creation as an optional button which works great without the need to wait. This avoids me having to both set the ref column as "is a part of" and alter the form save event. 

I am still baffled by the Wait use case and why the Wait execution is so variable.