Identify workflow execution statuses
When you run a workflow, automation orchestrator tracks the overall execution and each individual step through a series of statuses (states). Understanding these statuses helps you monitor progress, identify problems, and decide what action to take.
Execution statuses
An execution represents a single run of a workflow. The execution status reflects the combined progress of all steps in the workflow.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | The execution has been created but has not started yet. |
| Running | At least one step is actively executing. |
| Paused | All active steps are waiting for external input, such as a human approval or a wait timer. The execution resumes automatically when any step receives its input and becomes active. |
| Completed | All steps finished successfully. |
| Completed with errors | Some steps failed, but the workflow continued because those steps haveOn failure > Continue on failure enabled. Review the failed steps to determine whether the results are acceptable. |
| Failed | A step failed and the workflow stopped. |
| Cancelled | A user cancelled the execution. Any pending approval requests were automatically cancelled. |
Step statuses
Each step in a workflow tracks its own status independently. You can view a step's current status by clicking it on the canvas during or after execution.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | The step is queued but has not started yet. |
| Running | The step is actively executing. |
| Waiting | The step is suspended and waiting for external input. Approval steps display this status asWaiting for approval. |
| Retrying | The step failed and is being retried according to its retry policy. |
| Successful | The step finished successfully. |
| Failed | The step encountered an error. Click the step to view error details in the Output pane. |
| Skipped | The step was not executed. Common causes include a failed upstream step without continue on failure enabled, a condition or switch branch that was not taken, or a converge step that completed before this step was scheduled. |
| Cancelled | The step was stopped before it finished. A step is cancelled when a user cancels the execution, or when a converge step completes or times out while this step is still running. |
How the on-failure setting affects the execution outcome
By default, a failed step causes the entire execution to fail and skips all downstream steps. You can override this behavior for individual steps by changing the On failure behavior setting in the step's Settings tab:
- System default: Uses the platform-wide failure behavior. Unless an administrator has changed this setting, the default behavior stops the workflow on failure.
- Continue on failure: Marks the step as failed but lets downstream steps continue. You can access the failed step's error details through template expressions. The overall execution finishes with a Completed with errors status instead of Failed.
- Stop workflow or branch on failure: Halts execution at the failed step. The workflow skips downstream steps and the execution transitions to Failed.