Workflow break check · your result
Where your workflow between your tools typically breaks
These are the places setups like yours usually fail; they are not findings about your systems, since nothing here looked at them. Each one comes with a way to check it yourself. Navceed is being built to run checks of these six kinds; today it runs them on an example company, and connecting your own tools is coming next.
1. A record never arrives in the next tool
Check firstAnywhereYou can run thisabout 20 min
Shown because you answered “Someone notices and tells us”.
How to check, and why it happens
Something that should move from one tool to the next is refused, skipped or held back, and the person or company it was about never shows up. The first tool says it sent it.
Why it happens. A rule, a required field, a daily limit or a lost login stops it, and nothing tells the people who care.
Usually fixed by: Whoever owns the connection, with the owner of the receiving tool.
Kind of break, one of six: Arrival: did it show up in the next tool in time?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.
2. What the next tool did never comes back
Check firstAnywhereRun by whoever runs the stepabout 20 min
Shown because you answered “It doesn't get back”.
How to check, and why it happens
A reply, a payment, a status change or a decision happens in the next tool, and the first tool never learns of it. One team works from an old picture.
Why it happens. The way back was never built, or it only matches records one way, so a second address, a missing record or an automatic message breaks the link.
Usually fixed by: The owner of the returning step, with the first tool's admin.
Kind of break, one of six: Return path: does what the next tool did get back to the first?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.
3. The counts at each end quietly differ
Check firstAnywhereYou can run thisabout 45 min
Shown because you answered “Only when someone complains”.
How to check, and why it happens
The number that left one tool and the number that arrived in the next drift apart, and no report shows the gap because each tool only reports its own side.
Why it happens. Counts are read when they are reported, not compared as they happen.
Usually fixed by: Whoever owns the reporting.
Kind of break, one of six: Count: do the numbers at each end agree?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.
4. A field arrives blank, or in the wrong place
Check firstAnywhereYou can run thisabout 30 min
Shown because you answered “We wouldn't”.
How to check, and why it happens
Records arrive on time, but one field is empty or landed in another field, so rules, routing and reports that depend on it quietly stop working.
Why it happens. A field was renamed, retyped or recreated in one tool, or a list value changed, and the connection kept the old definition.
Usually fixed by: The owner of the mapping, with each tool's admin.
Kind of break, one of six: Field landed: did each field arrive with a value, in the right place?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.
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5. A step stops, or runs late, and nobody is told
Worth a quick lookAnywhereRun by whoever runs the stepabout 20 min
Shown because you answered “I'm not sure, to: How would you notice that a step has stopped running, or is running hours or days late?”.
How to check, and why it happens
A step that should run every hour or every day stops, or slips by hours, while everything around it looks normal. Work piles up behind it.
Why it happens. A connection lost its login, hit a limit or failed once and was never retried, and an error log nobody reads is the only place it shows.
Usually fixed by: Whoever runs the step.
Kind of break, one of six: Freshness: is the step still running, and on time?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.
The common questions follow six kinds of check: Arrival (did it show up in the next tool in time?), Return path (does what the next tool did get back to the first?), Count (do the numbers at each end agree?), Freshness (is the step still running, and on time?), Field landed (did each field arrive with a value, in the right place?), Condition (does a rule that should always hold, hold?).
Checking by hand does not last
Everything above is a one-off look. The breaks that cost you are the ones that start next Tuesday, when someone changes a field.
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