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Troubleshooting Admin team-manager automation-owner

Automations troubleshooting: when triggers don't fire, actions fail or runs are missing

Automations troubleshooting: when triggers don’t fire, actions fail or runs are missing

An automation has three parts that can break independently:

Part Question
Trigger Did the event happen the way the automation expects?
Conditions Did the run pass the filter (or was it skipped silently)?
Action Did the action try, succeed or fail?

This page is the ladder to walk through each. Always start from the top. Jumping straight to “action failed” misses 80% of cases that turn out to be trigger or condition issues.

Quick health check

  1. Open Automations in the web app.
  2. Find the automation in question.
  3. Open its Runs / History view. You should see every recent execution attempt.
  4. If you see no runs at all -> the trigger never fired. Skip to Trigger didn’t fire.
  5. If you see runs but each one is skipped -> the conditions filter them out. Skip to Conditions skipped the run.
  6. If you see runs that failed -> jump to Action failed.

1. Trigger didn’t fire

Possible cause What to check
Automation is inactive The toggle on the automation must be ON. Recently created automations sometimes save as draft.
Trigger is restricted to a check-in / team you do not own Open the trigger’s settings and confirm it is bound to the right check-in.
Scheduled trigger time has not passed Scheduler runs in the org’s time zone. See scheduler.
Triggered by user action that did not happen “Check-in submitted” requires an actual submission, not opening the prompt.
The triggering check-in itself is paused / deactivated A paused check-in produces no events. See find a deactivated check-in.

A useful test: temporarily change the trigger to “every 5 minutes” and verify runs appear in history. Then revert.

2. Conditions skipped the run

If the runs list shows entries marked “skipped” or “did not match”, a condition is filtering them out.

Common culprits:

  • AND vs OR logic in the condition group. Complex conditions often turn out to be ANDed when the user expected OR.
  • Field reference typo (e.g., comparing a string to a number).
  • Empty fields in the source event that the condition assumes are filled.
  • Time-window conditions (e.g., “only on weekdays”). Check the day/time of the test.

Open one skipped run and inspect the evaluation log if available. If not, simplify the conditions to confirm runs do fire, then re-add complexity one rule at a time.

3. Action failed

Symptom Likely cause
permission denied to a channel The bot is not in the channel or lacks Send Messages / Embed Links.
not found for a user / team / channel The reference (ID / slug) was deleted or renamed after the automation was created.
timeout or 5xx from an external system The integration target is down or rate-limited; the run will retry per platform policy.
invalid template / unresolved variable A variable like {{member.email}} referenced a field that is empty for that event.
Action runs but nothing happens The action posted somewhere you are not watching (DM instead of channel, archived channel, etc.).

Click into a failed run to see the error detail. The detail names the field or step that failed. Screenshot it if you escalate.

“It ran but the user didn’t get the message”

Common reasons:

  • The action posted to a DM that the user has muted.
  • The user is in time off.
  • The target channel was archived between automation creation and the run.
  • The action target was a different organization (very rare; only on cross-org integrations).
  • The user left the org but the action still references them.

Limits and timing

  • Automations are not real-time the way streaming systems are. Expect seconds, not milliseconds, between trigger and action.
  • Heavy “all members in org” actions are throttled to protect the chat platform’s rate limits.
  • A single automation that depends on another automation’s output may not see the downstream result immediately.

For exact limits per plan, see Plan comparison.

When to escalate to support

Send:

  • The automation name and the run ID of one failed example.
  • The timestamps of when you expected it to fire.
  • A screenshot of the error detail if there is one.
  • Confirmation that the automation is active.
  • Org name and your email.

Then contact Dailybot support from Help / Contact in the product or on the website.