I have a zap which parses information from invoices and processes them into Xero. I have introduced a step to ensure we are not processing duplicate invoices, therefore the step is a Zoho Sheets step. I have a record of all invoices processed and this step should look up the reference in the correct column and if nothing is found, then the invoice is not a duplicate. If it is found then obviously it’s already been processed in the past.
Immediately following the search step is a paths step, where one relies on the search being false (not a duplicate) and the other being true (duplicate).
It is therefore important that the search step moves on regardless of the outcome. I set the option “Should this step be considered a success if nothing is found?” to true, therefore I expected the step to continue.
This does not appear to be the case and with several tests, the Zap halts on the search step saying nothing was found.
Just wanted to check in here to see whether adding an error handler as Troy suggested helped to resolve things here?
Keen to ensure you’re all set with this so please let us know if you’re in need of any further help on this!
Hi guys,
Error handlers have worked, thank you! - I also had another Zap which would parse data from an invoice and depending on the category, would create a bill in Xero. There were 9 possible categories, so created 9 paths and the zap would try and fail on each path until it matched and then created the Xero bill. In testing, I found that due to so many of the paths not matching, by the time it did actually match, the zap halted and turned itself off. I amended this and used 9 embedded error handling steps and this seems to have worked.
I’m not sure whether it’s my incorrect use of “paths” or whether there was a glitch within Zoho Sheets. I have had feedback that Zoho have made some changes and after creating a new, simple zap to search a file name within a zoho sheet and continue regardless of whether the result was found, it now seems to continue as expected and the search step does not show as failed.
Hopefully both the Zoho issue and the error handling steps will help others!
Thanks
Rich
That’s an awesome news @RichPurseglove! Thank you for providing an update here!
If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Community. We’re always happy to help!
Hi guys,
I thought I had resolved this with an error handler, but i’m not so sure
I replaced the paths step with an error handler, immediately following a search step. If the invoice number IS present in the spreadsheet, it’s successful and will mark it as a duplicate and email me to alert me. If the invoice number IS NOT present in the spreadsheet, the step fails and then runs the process of adding the invoice to the accounts system.
The issue is, the invoices are rarely duplicated, so the step fails more time than it succeeds, but after so many fails, it turns off the zap.
I have clearly missed something here?
I’m so sorry to hear that @RichPurseglove.
I just did some checking with a Zoho Sheets Search Row action and I’m not seeing any error when it isn’t able to find a matching row:
So it wouldn’t seem like the error handler would be necessary as you could just set up paths to check whether or not that Zap Search Was Found Status field was either true (meaning it found an existing row) or false (meaning it didn’t find an existing row).
Is it definitely the Search Row action that’s erroring repeatedly? Or is there another step in the ‘Error’ path that’s erroring? If you take a quick look at the a recently errored run in the Zap history that should help to confirm which step is erroring.
Looking forward to hearing from you on this!
Ah I think I know what has happened here….
When I first created this Zap, I used paths and when it didn’t match anything, it would error, regardless of me ticking “success on failure”. This was an error on Zoho’s side, so I used error handlers as an alternative, but in the meantime it looks like Zoho have fixed the issue, so I will revert back to paths.
I will give it a go and see if it works.
Ah, I see. I think you’re definitely right on that, @RichPurseglove! Please do keep us updated on how it goes after switching back to paths - want to ensure this gets sorted!
Hi guys,
This still doesn’t seem to be working as expected.
I have reverted back to paths, but in the Zoho Sheets search step, I am still getting “Step successfully halted as nothing was found”.
I have selected that it’s considered to be successful, even when nothing is found.
The alternative path is still running correctly, but the Zap should not be erroring and halting. If I run this too many times, the Zap turns itself off.
Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks
Rich
That’s really odd @RichPurseglove. As you’ve set the Should this step be considered a success if no search results are found? field to Yes it shouldn’t be halting the Zap when it doesn’t find a matching row.
It looks like the Zap is using an old version of the Zoho Sheet app as I’m seeing a version number beside the app name:
If that doesn’t fix it, then I’d recommend reaching out to our Support team here to have this investigated further, as it could be that there’s some bug that’s causing this step to halt when it should be continuing.
Keen to ensure this gets sorted so please keep us updated on how you get on with this!
