Delayed and waiting automation diagnosis
Key Takeaway
Pick the tool by what you need to see. The Time-Based Automations page lists pending scheduled paths. The Monitor tab in the Automation Lightning app shows failed and paused flow interviews. Process Builder scheduled actions appear in Paused And Failed Flow Interviews only after you create a list view.
Some automation runs later instead of right away. Scheduled paths in record-triggered flows wait for a set time, and flow interviews can pause or fail in the background. To diagnose delayed automation, you need to know three things: where waiting work is listed, which tool shows why a run failed or paused, and which rules can cancel, delay, or retry a queued run.
Delayed automation and where to look
A scheduled path's time is based on when the record was created or updated, or on a date or date/time field on the record. You can add an optional offset before or after that time. Each scheduled run waits in a queue until its time arrives. Along the way, a queued run can be canceled or fail.
Background flows can fail quietly, so an error may go unnoticed for some time before anyone sees that a business process is broken. The Element Error Rate field flags flows that need attention, with a green success icon for healthy flows and a yellow warning icon for unhealthy ones.
Choose the tool by what you need to see.
| What you need to see | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Individual queued runs of a flow's scheduled paths | Time-Based Automations page in Setup |
| Failed and paused flow interviews, and why they failed or paused | Monitor tab in the Automation Lightning app |
| Which record-triggered flows run later for a record change | Flow Trigger Explorer |
| Pending scheduled actions from Process Builder processes | Paused And Failed Flow Interviews in Setup, after you create a list view |
| When a scheduled path was queued and when it ran | Debug logs |