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Question

Is there a way to tell Zapier to just ignore an error in a particular step?

  • 16 April 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 1791 views
Jimbotron3000
Userlevel 1


I still don’t see how this helps in the case that you want the Zap to continue even if the previous step failed. With a filter, the Zap will stop running.

Is there a way to tell Zapier to just ignore an error in a particular step? For example, I have a Zap where I’m processing form input that may or may not contain a mobile number (it’s an optional field). I update a HubSpot contact record with the phone number. There’s no way I can find in Zapier to say “If the field isn’t empty, update the HubSpot contact record”. So, I just run the update contact step regardless, but it throws an error if you pass it no data for the field to be updated.

I would love a checkbox on Zapier steps that says, simply “Ignore errors on this step”. Or, even better, an If/Then option that allows you to say “Run this step only if this condition is met, otherwise skip this step.” Filters don’t work for this since they stop the entire Zap rather than just skipping one step. Paths don’t work either since you can’t “return” to the “main path” after executing one step. You’d need to duplicate the entire rest of the Zap in both paths.

I’ve seen a proposed workaround using paths where the “successful” path calls a webhook which launches another Zap, which continues processing what you want to do, but now you’re managing multiple Zaps just to do a single task.

5 replies

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hey there, @Jimbotron3000! 

Hope you don’t mind but I’ve moved your question out into it’s own topic to help give it a bit more visibility since the topic it was asked on is two years old!

Is there a way to tell Zapier to just ignore an error in a particular step?

If it’s a search step, there’s usually the option to allow the Zap to continue to next steps if nothing is found instead of erroring. See: Add your search criteria > Optional: Let the Zap continue even if nothing is found. But you can’t set non-search actions to ignore errors. That would be a great feature to have so I’ve passed your ideas about having a checkbox to ignore errors on specific steps (as well as the if/then option) over to our Product team! 😁
​​​  

For situations like “If the field isn’t empty, update the HubSpot contact record” you could the Exists rule on either a filter, or paths in a Zap. That would allow you to check whether a value exists for a specific field, like the phone number. Then the Zap would only continue to run subsequent actions if a phone number was available to use when updating the contact.

It’s also possible to set a default value to be used if a specific field is blank using Formatter by Zapier action. You can find out more about how to do that here: Set default values for blank fields in Zaps

Hope that helps! 🤞

Jimbotron3000
Userlevel 1

Thank you, @SamB 

My biggest use case is with HubSpot. For example, let’s say I search for a deal with “Find Deal”, but the deal doesn’t exist. I can check the box to let the Zap continue if nothing is found, but then if I try to use that deal in a later step, for example “Get Deal Owner” or “Get Deal Stage”, those steps error out and there’s no way to avoid that.

Regarding using filters or paths, it doesn’t solve the problem. Filters doesn’t work because I don’t want to stop the Zap altogether when the deal isn’t found, because the deal isn’t necessary information for the rest of the Zap (it’s just nice to have, but can be omitted).  Paths don’t work, because the rest of the Zap still has a lot of steps that I want to execute regardless, and paths permanently split execution into completely separate paths. With “paths” I’d need to duplicate my entire logic in both paths, with the exception of the steps I want to skip. Since this happens multiple times in the same Zap, I’d end up with 8 parallel paths.

What Zapier really needs is a simple “If/Then” and “Goto/Label” functionality. I should be able to say “If deal doesn't exist, goto step 7”. This would solve all our problems and is a very basic feature of just about any programming language.

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Happy to help @Jimbotron3000! 🙂

Ah, yes I can see how that’s not ideal. Having an IF/Then feature that would allow you to set which part of a Zap should be run based on certain outcomes would be awesome! I can totally see myself using that too. I’ve passed your additional comments here over to the Product team for consideration too.

In the meantime, we do now have the ability to duplicate existing action steps and paths, which might make the process of replicating the existing paths a bit quicker: Duplicate action steps and paths

It’s not possible to have 8 parallel paths but depending on your workflow, it might be possible to nest some paths within each path to achieve the desired outcome. More on nested paths here:

Hopefully that’ll help while the desired IF/Then functionality isn’t available.

A

Hello @SamB , 
I hope all is well. 

Has there been any advancements from the product team in regards to this matter? 
Thank you very much, 

Kind regards

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Thanks for checking on this, @ArnaudCha! 👋
 
We’ve recently released a new error handler beta feature (available on Professional plans or higher) to define how Zaps should proceed if they run into an error. An error handler can be added to any step in a Zap, except for trigger and Paths steps - but can be added to an action step within a path. It allows the Zap to run different actions depending on whether the step was run successfully or ran into an error.

You can learn more about this here: Set up custom error handling

Hope that helps. Do let us know if you run into any issues in giving the error handler feature a try!

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