The Auto Error step

The Auto Error step is added by default in two situations: (a) if your workflow contains one or more automatic steps or (b) if you configured the Cancel step to perform a different action than None.

The Auto Error step must have at least one assignee; this is the person that receives a notification when an error occurs in an automatic action. The set of assignees must cover all the locales in which you work. The Auto Error step is usually assigned to an administrator.

When a task gets to the Auto Error step, the assignee has two options for completing the step—Redo or Cancel:
  • The Redo option retries the failed step that caused the task to be assigned to Auto Error.
  • The Cancel option cancels the task and sends it to the Cancel step.

The Auto Error step does not support explicit transitions; you cannot configure any explicit transitions into or out of the Auto Error step. Implicitly, there is a transition from the Auto Error step to the Cancel step (in case an assignee cancels the task), from every automatic step in the system to the Auto Error step (in case an error occurs), and then back to each automatic step in the system (if the assignee decides to redo the step).

If an error occurs while performing the automatic action corresponding to the Cancel step, the Auto Error step behaves slightly differently:
  • The Redo option attempts to cancel the step again and re-runs the Cancel automatic action. Similar to other automatic actions, this action will be re-executed by choosing the Redo option.
  • The Cancel option attempts to cancel the step again, but it cancels the task directly, without re-running the automatic action. Similar to other automatic actions, this action will not be re-executed by choosing the Cancel option. If the same automatic action keeps failing repeatedly, use this option to cancel the task directly.

For the tasks that got to Auto Error from a prior task cancellation, the Cancel option attempts to run the Cancel automatic action again. It is equivalent to choosing Redo in the previous scenario.

If a group of tasks are canceled together or if a project is canceled, the tasks that cannot be canceled and that go to Auto Error do not prevent other sibling tasks in the group from being canceled successfully. However, if a child task cannot be canceled, it prevents the parent tasks from being canceled. If you cancel a project, a single task that cannot be canceled prevents the project from being canceled successfully.