Fix workflow problems

I cannot see Connect in the sidebar

Connect is switched on for every organization, and you need permission to build workflows or decide approvals. Owners, Admins and Managers have both by default. If you cannot see Connect, ask an Owner to check your role. If Assignar has turned the module off for your organization, contact your Assignar account manager.

A workflow published but nothing happened

Check, in this order:

1. The workflow is switched on.
2. The event matches the trigger's filters. A trigger filtered to one client, form or status change ignores everything else, and a filter naming a client, project or form that has since been renamed or archived matches nothing.
3. The trigger is not a scheduled one. Assignar Ops triggers and most outside triggers check for new activity every few minutes; Assignar Pay triggers fire within seconds.
4. Your run balance is not at zero. See below.

Workflows stopped and nobody switched them off

Two things pause workflows by themselves:

• The run balance reached zero. The Connect page shows Workflows paused — run allowance used up. Buy runs, or wait for the monthly reset, and they switch back on by themselves. See Usage and billing.
• The workspace's acting user left or lost access. The toolbar shows Needs re-authorisation, and members get a notification saying the workspace needs re-authorising. Open Workspaces and select Run this workspace as me. See Share workflows.

A step failed

Short-lived problems, such as another system being briefly unavailable, are retried for you. When a step still fails, the run is marked failed with the reason. Open the failed run in the builder and read the step's error. It names what went wrong. Fix the cause, then retry the failed step. Retrying picks up from that step instead of repeating the ones that worked, which matters when an earlier step already sent an email or a text.

Common causes:

• An outside connection needs signing in again, for example after a password change. Open the connection in the builder and sign in.
• An Assignar Pay step says the workspace is not authorised: "This Connect workspace is not authorised to call the Pay API — open it in Assignar Pay to re-authorise". Open the workspace in Connect. If the toolbar shows Needs re-authorisation, take it over with Run this workspace as me.
• The acting user does not have permission for what the step does, such as creating purchase orders or managing tags. Give that person the permission, or have someone who has it take the workspace over.
• A required field is empty, or the record has moved on since the workflow started.
• Create Worker fails with "Assignar request failed with status 500": the workflow was built before the step had a User Type field. Open the Create Worker step, choose a User Type, and publish the workflow again. See Create a worker.

For SMS steps, see Text from a workflow. For approval steps, see Add an approval step.

A workflow runs more often than expected

An Updated trigger fires on every change to a record, which can be many times a day. Add filters, or use a Status Changed trigger with From Status and To Status so it fires only on the change that matters.

Connect delivers events reliably, which now and then means a workflow sees the same event twice. Prefer steps that are safe to repeat: Create Cost Code with an External ID updates the same code, and the tag steps do nothing when the tag is already there.

Too many runs are being used

Filter at the trigger. An event the filters leave out never starts a run, while an unfiltered trigger spends a run on every event, only for a later step to discover it was not interesting. The Runs per day chart on the Billing page shows when the jump started, which usually points at the workflow you changed or published that day.

Questions people ask first

Can another organization see our workflows or data? No. Each organization's workflows, connections and run history are separate.

Who inside our organization can see my workflows? Only you, while they are in My workspace. Everyone in a shared workspace can see and edit everything in it. See Share workflows.

Do I need to know how to code? No. Workflows are built visually, or by describing them to Milo.

Can I edit a workflow while it is live? Yes. The published version keeps running until you publish your changes.

How many workflows can we have switched on? Each workspace has a limit, set for your organization. Contact Assignar support to change it.

Why did my workflow text nobody? Everyone on the list was skipped, most often because they have not opted in to SMS. The step's result lists who and why.

A system we use is not in the catalog. Contact Assignar support with a custom integration request.