Automation Statuses

As you begin using Lawmatics' automation feature it can be a good idea to keep an eye on the status of your automations to make sure that everything is running properly. Over time, your automations will definitely become a well-oiled machine, but early on you may occasionally need to troubleshoot as you are still getting familiar with the feature.

Here are some general things to keep in mind with regard to automations:

  • Automations generally take about 30 seconds to 1 minute to run after the entry condition is met
  • Each automation will only trigger on a target once
  • The action items in an automation will run consecutively from top to bottom once the automation is triggered
  • Unless there are any time delay actions used in the automation, all action items will occur within seconds of each other
  • Once the last action item in the automation has occurred, the target is no longer running in that automation
  • The automation exit conditions are checked before each action item, if the exit conditions are met then the target will immediately exit from the automation and no further actions will occur
  • You can view a log of activity for each automation by clicking the statistics icon from the automations page
  • You will see a log of automation activity on each matter, including the matter's status in that automation

One of the first steps in automation troubleshooting is to know your automation statuses. This will be helpful when viewing a matter's timeline, because you can quickly see at a glance what that matter's status is in a particular automation.

Below you will find a list of the 6 possible automation statuses, along with additional details about each one.

  1. Running
    1. This means that the target is currently running through the automation
    2. You typically will not see a target stay in this status for very long before moving to one of the other statuses
  2. Finished
    1. You will see this status on a target who has completed running through an automation and is no longer in that automation
    2. This means that the target made it all the way through to the end of the end of the automation without exiting and without any failures
    3. When you see this status, it is safe to assume that every action item in the automation has occurred on this target
    4. When an automation is in the Finished status, you will always see a button to restart the automation in case you would like to run it again
  3. Delayed
    1. This status lets you know that a target is currently within a time delay in the automation
    2. When you see this, you do not need to take any action. The automation will simply continue to the next step once the specified amount of time in the delay has passed
    3. If you wish to skip the time delay and move the matter along to the next step, you can do so by clicking the button shown below. Note that you will only see this button when the status is Delayed.
  4. Paused
    1. You will only see this status if one of your firm's Lawmatics users has chosen to manually pause the automation, this is not a naturally occurring status
    2. In the image above, you will see a pause button directly to the left of the highlighted option. Clicking this button simply pauses the target wherever they are at in the automation
    3. Pausing the automation can be useful if you accidentally triggered the automation too soon, or if the target has stated that they need more time before receiving next steps
    4. The target will not resume the automation unless someone manually resumes using one of the buttons shown below
    5. The highlighted options above are described as follows:
      1. Resume the target with the remainder of the delay
      2. Restart the target from the beginning of the automation
      3. Resume the target with no delay, pushing them to the next action item in the automation
      4. Force exit the target from the automation
  5. Exited
    1. This status means that the target has exited the automation before running through every action item
    2. It is possible that the target simply met the exit conditions, or that a user chose to force exit them from the automation
    3. If the target was force exited by a user, you will see that reflected in the activity log with the user's name, shown in the image below
    4. When a target has exited, you have the option to restart the automation if needed, also shown below
  6. Failed
    1. You will only see this status if an action within the automation failed to execute
    2. Here are a few example situations that could cause failures:
      1. Target does not have an email address and the automation contains an email action
      2. Target does not have a phone number and the automation contains a text message action
      3. Automation is sending a signature request to multiple signers, and the additional signer relationship(s) have not been assigned on the matter
      4. An action item in the automation is built to send from a variable user lookup field (such as the Matter Owner), and no user has been assigned to that field
    3. When an automation fails, you will see a failure reason listed in the activity log
    4. If an automation has failed, you will likely want to correct the issue causing the failure, and then you can choose to restart the automation from the beginning, or just retry from the failed step
    5. We suggest turning on notifications for Automation Failure, found in settings > notification settings, so that you will be alerted when an automation has failed
    6. The "Only Mine" option, shown above, means that you will only be notified of automation failures for matter that you are the owner of

FAQ's

Do I need to keep tabs on that status of automations as they are running?

No, you do not need to keep tabs on your automations. The information above is intended to help you become familiar with automations and troubleshoot if it becomes necessary. In general, your automations will run cleanly in the background and should not need much (or any) interference from you or your team.

How do I rerun an automation after it has already finished running?

After an automation has finished you will see a circular arrow icon, click this to restart the automation. This can be useful if you needed to make a correction to something on the matter after the automation has run, and then you want it to run again.

Can a particular matter be excluded from automations?

No, you can't specifically choose to exclude a particular target from automations. However, remember that any given matter will only run in an automation when they meet the entry conditions for that automation, so if you simply don't allow a particular matter to meet the entry conditions, they would not run.

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