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Question

Line Item Task Usage

  • 23 April 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 347 views
M

I’m trying to understand how Zapier calculates the number of tasks when using Line Items midway through the zap.

I have a zap which runs 3 tasks. After the third task, 4 line items are processed in the final 2 tasks. In the task history, there will be 4 instances of the zap showing, each with 3 + 2 = 5 tasks used.

If I’m understanding correctly, this would be 5*4 = 20 tasks used. But the first three tasks were only executed once, so I would think that the total number of tasks would be 3 + 2*4 = 11. It seems like I would be charged for these phantom tasks which aren't being executed.

To take this to the extreme, suppose I have a zap with 100 tasks and then at the end of that zap I have 1 task using Line Item support for 10 items. Am I getting charged for 100 + 1*10 = 110 tasks or am I getting charged for 101*10 = 1010 tasks? A thousand tasks weren’t run, but that’s how it would look when viewing the task history.

 

Is there something I’m misunderstanding about how the number of tasks is being calculated when using Line Item support? How exactly does Zapier compute the cost in these scenarios?

This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

5 replies

Liz_Roberts
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Hi @mickwar ,

Circling back as I see you were able to connect with Arvind in Support on your task calculations!

I also see that they have passed along your feedback regarding a clearer view of task usage for folks- the product teams have received this feedback and your voice has been heard :relaxed: Please let us know if you have any further questions or feedback- always happy to help!

Danvers
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

I think that it would be best to take a closer look at your task history and the count of tasks used in your plan so I’m going to escalate this to the Support Team. Someone will be in touch via email as soon as possible. 

M

@Danvers I know that the tasks before the split only happen once, but when looking at the task history, it shows the task count as including those which would have only happened once.

 

How can I guarantee I will only be charged for the tasks that actually ran and not the task count which appears in the history? There is a discrepancy between these two values and it would seem I am getting overcharged.

Danvers
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Hi @mickwar! Hopefully I can clarify how line item tasks are calculated. Everything after the split would be counted for each line item, but anything before that split should only have happened once. So if there was a filter, then a formatter step followed by the line items split, the first 2 would only have happened one time each. 

 

For reference this help doc outlines how we calculate tasks. I hope that clears things up! 

 

 

M
Userlevel 1

Mickwar - I have similar questions.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why there is a charge for some of these items.  IN one case there was a suggestion to add a filter to stop a zap so that I don’t get charged for tasks.  So I added that in my most complex zap (5 steps - now 6 with the new filter with one being a branching step) and now I get charged an extra task to the point it is better for me not to have that filter at all and just deal with that failures.  Sigh.

 

I just signed on yesterday to the professional plan hoping to use this to automate some regular updates to Smartsheets for about 900 records at the start and then weekly updates for about half of them thinking the 2000 tasks would be enough.  I am not even through the testing yet and already have used 278 tasks out of my 2000 task/month quota.  

 

I am not seeing the value here at this point and starting to question if I need to find another solution. I can almost understand the task charges for reaching out to some system, but for branching and filtering within the zap engine that seems very nickle and dime to me ...

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