Even the best-laid plans can go a little sideways—and the same is true for recipes. While Uncanny Automator is designed to run reliably behind the scenes, there are times when a recipe might not complete as expected.
Maybe a form field was empty, a third-party plugin had a hiccup, or a condition wasn’t met. Sometimes, a recipe technically runs—but with errors that prevent all of the actions from succeeding.
The good news is that you can use automations to fix automations by setting up error notification recipes. That way, you’re never left wondering why something didn’t work—or worse, finding out from your users.
Note: This article assumes a working knowledge of creating Automator recipes, managing tokens, and using recipe logs.
Why recipes have errors
Automator recipes might not trigger or may complete with errors for any number of reasons. However, the common causes include:
- Configuration of data and compatibility (date formats, cross-platform formats, etc.)
- Missing or invalid data (user data, form field values, etc.)
- Third-party integration issues (API or plugin errors, rate limits, etc.)
- Conditions not met (trigger fires, but action conditions block execution)
Why error notification recipes matter
Error notification recipes act like your site’s early warning system. They give you visibility into issues before they become problems. Whether it’s a failed purchase workflow or a form submission that didn’t quite go through, you’ll want to know about it.
Here’s why setting up error notifications is a smart move:
- Spot issues fast: Get notified as soon as something goes wrong.
- Speed up troubleshooting: See what failed, when, and why.
- Improve user experience: Prevent confusion, lost conversions, or missed follow-ups.
- Catch edge cases: Some errors may only appear under certain conditions—this helps you find them.
If you’re relying on recipes to automate key site functions, error notifications help ensure that your site is functioning as intended.
Triggers to use for error notification recipes
Uncanny Automator has three triggers designed specifically for setting up error notification recipes. These triggers only fire when a recipe actually runs.
This means if a recipe fails to trigger at all—for example, if a form submission or course completion was not detected—then these triggers will not work.
Triggers for Everyone:
- Automator > A recipe completes with a specific status
- Automator > A recipe completes with errors a number of time(s)
Triggers for Logged-in Users:
- Automator > A user completes a recipe with errors
These three triggers offer flexibility in monitoring workflow execution and site performance.
Recommended actions for error notification recipes
Once you’ve configured a trigger to detect recipe errors, the next step is deciding how you want to be notified—and what you want to do with that information. Here are some of the most useful actions to include in your error notification recipes:
- Send an email using the Email integration
- Send a message via Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, or Microsoft Teams
- Log the error to Google Sheets or Airtable
- Create a task in ClickUp with the error information
- Trigger a backup automation
Error notification tokens
However you choose to follow-up recipes completing with errors, context is everything. For either of the triggers we mentioned before, there are some crucial tokens you may want to include in any notification or log.
- Recipe ID and/or title
- Recipe status
- Recipe edit link: Redirects to the recipe editor.
- Recipe log URL: Redirects to Automator > Logs with the specific recipe’s modal displayed.
- Action log URL: Redirects to Automator > Logs > Action with the specific recipe’s modal displayed.
- Trigger log URL: Redirects to Automator > Logs > Trigger with the specific recipe’s modal displayed.
- Trigger completion date
Setting up error notification recipes
Configuring error notification recipes is the same as configuring any other kind of Automator recipe. Simply navigate to Automator > Add new recipe and select any one of the three recipe triggers we outlined above.
To get started, you can use any of these Automator recipe templates:
- When a recipe completes with errors a certain number of times, send an email to the site admin
- When a recipe completes with errors a certain number of times, send a Slack message to a user
- When a recipe completes with errors a certain number of times, send a WhatsApp message to a user
- When a recipe completes with errors a certain number of times, send a direct Discord message to a member
- When a recipe completes with a specific status, send an email to the site admin
- When a recipe completes with a specific status, send a Slack message to a user
- When a recipe completes with a specific status, send a WhatsApp message to a user
- When a recipe completes with a specific status, send a direct Discord message to a member
- When a user completes a recipe with errors, send an email to the site admin
- When a user completes a recipe with errors, send a Slack message to a user
- When a user completes a recipe with errors, send a WhatsApp message to a user
- When a user completes a recipe with errors, send a direct Discord message to a member
- When a recipe completes with errors a certain number of times, create a row in a Google Sheet
- When a recipe completes with a specific status, create a row in a Google Sheet
- When a user completes a recipe with errors, create a row in a Google Sheet
