Hi, in one of the test runs of my automation, the connector function that is communicating with an ERP is timed out and I believe the rest of the flow did not execute. I have mapped the connector function’s ‘success’ response to a variable that is being utilized downstream. Also in this case, I did not get an email which I was expecting during failed connector call. So I want to confirm, in a case where the connector function talking to a third party times out, will the subsequent blocks fail to execute?
Thank you.
Hello @schauhan ,
That’s right. If one of the steps of the Automation fails (e.g. if the connector times out), subsequent steps are not executed. In particular, in the example above the variable setting logic and email wouldn’t be sent.
There are several ways of catching failed Automations executions today.
One of them would be to set a Table row per execution with a field of success/fail per critical area, and to monitor that with a separate automation. Another would be to check Run History manually. We are also planning to improve the Run History to add in-depth tracing showing in detail when an Automation has failed - this is a project currently slated for 2025.
We are discussing system wide Notifications that would alert an administrator when something fails, but this would be a bigger project, which could take some time to build. I’ll also connect with the team about implementing a simpler “email to administrator” notification when an Automation fails.
To get a better sense of the value and urgency of failure notifications, could I ask a bit more about your current process:
- How often are you observing Connector timeouts?
- How do you detect Automation failures today?
- Olga
Thank you for the detailed response, Olga. I’ll discuss monitoring automations via tables with our team to see if that can be a viable solution for us. As for frequency of those connector function timeouts, I would say it fails once every 7-8 executions. Currently I am detecting failures manually but I’ve the email block at the tail end of the automation to communicate both, success and failure.