Automations troubleshooting

When an automation isn't doing what you expected, here's how to figure out why.

Did the trigger fire at all?

Open the automation's Run history tab. If there's no entry for the event you expected, the trigger never fired. Likely reasons:

• The automation is paused. Check the toggle.
• The trigger has filters that didn't match. For example, if your trigger is "Contract signed" filtered to the "NDA" template, signing a different contract won't fire it.
• The event itself didn't actually happen the way you think. A "form submitted" trigger fires on form submission, not on form save or assignment.

If the trigger should have fired and didn't, double-check the filters and the event. The most common bug is a filter that's narrower than intended.

Did the trigger fire but actions failed?

If Run history shows the trigger firing but one or more actions failed, click into the run for details. Common failures:

• Action references a deleted resource. If your action says "send a message in chat X" and someone deleted chat X, the action fails. Re-point the action at a current chat.
• Placeholder didn't resolve. A placeholder like {client.name} only works if the trigger event has a client in its context. If the trigger doesn't carry that field, the placeholder is empty and may break things downstream. Inspect what fields your trigger actually provides.
• Permissions. If the automation is set up by a user who's no longer on the team, some actions may fail because the executing user doesn't have the right access. Re-create or re-own the automation under an active user.

Did everything run but the result is wrong?

If the automation ran successfully but produced something you didn't want, wrong message, wrong board, action on the wrong client, the configuration is off. Edit the automation, fix the action, and test it again with your test client before re-enabling.

Common gotchas

The automation runs more times than expected. If you have multiple automations with overlapping triggers (two automations both triggered by "invoice paid"), they each fire independently. That's by design, each automation is independent. But it can produce surprises if you forgot one of them was running.

The automation runs on a test event. Triggers fire for any matching event, including ones from your test client. If you don't want test events triggering production automations, either pause the automation while testing or set filters that exclude your test client.

When to ask for help

If you've checked all of the above and the automation still isn't behaving, contact us through Contact us with the automation name and a recent run ID from Run history. We can look at exactly what happened on our side.