- 5 min read
- Feature
If you create multiple automations involving conflicting actions, you may encounter discrepancies in their performance. Some of these automations may operate smoothly, while others could encounter errors and not function properly.
Let’s explore more into competing automations and how to work around it!
What are competing automations?
To put it briefly, conflicting automations arise when you have more than one automation triggered by the same event (or a single automation with multiple actions) where these actions are executed simultaneously and could clash.
To illustrate, suppose we configure the subsequent two automations within the identical board:
- One automation archives an item when its status changes to a particular value. In contrast, the other automation changes the status of a different item to a specific value when the status of the first item changes to something else.
Since these automations have a common trigger, “When status changes to something,” both will commence simultaneously. Therefore, it’s highly probable that one of the automations will fail. The second automation may be unable to run because the first automation has already archived the item that the second automation is trying to change the status of!
Tip: Would you like to explore additional instances of conflicting automation procedures? If so, take a look at the section below in the article!
Triggering competing automations.
Now that we better understand what it entails to have conflicting automation let’s find out what occurs when you activate them on your board!
Let’s proceed with the two automation procedures mentioned in the earlier example. If we repeatedly activate these automations by modifying the status of Step 1 to “Done,” some will operate correctly, but others will not. In such a scenario, we will also receive a notification informing us that our automation has failed:
Additionally, if you access the automation activity log, you can observe evidence that certain triggered procedures were successful while others were not. You will also come across a red statement explaining why specific automation failed (in this example, it was because an item on our board was archived).
Competing Automation Examples
Although several possible circumstances could result in conflicting automation, the primary ones involve “final stage” automation actions that either transfer an item to another board, archive an item, or altogether remove an item.
Keeping this in mind, you will discover three distinct scenarios mentioned below in which automation will clash, resulting in some of them failing to execute:
- Scenario 1: An automation transfers an item to a different board.
- Scenario 2: An automation archives an item.
- Scenario 3: Automation completely removes an item.
Solving the problem
To resolve the issue of conflicting automations, begin by removing the individual automations clashing with each other. Then, create a single custom automation that achieves both actions instead.
As an illustration, consider the subsequent two automations:
One automation archives an item when its status changes to a particular value. In contrast, the other automation changes the status of a different item to a specific value when the status of the first item changes to something else.
These two automations can be merged into a single customized automation:
- If the status changes to a certain value, then set the status to a specific value, and finally archive the item.
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