Why Is My Workflow Not Running?

You set up a workflow but it doesn’t run when you expect it to.

Common causes

1. The workflow is not active. Workflows must be explicitly activated after creation. A draft workflow will never fire.

2. The trigger conditions aren’t met. The WHEN trigger may require a specific field change (e.g., “when status changes to Won”), and your action didn’t match that exact condition.

3. The IF conditions are filtering it out. Even if the trigger fires, the IF conditions may evaluate to false for your specific record.

4. The workflow was created after the event. Workflows are not retroactive. They only fire on events that happen after the workflow is activated.

5. Another workflow already handled the record. If multiple workflows target the same trigger, execution order and conflict rules may prevent duplicate processing.

Step-by-step fix

1. Go to Settings > Workflows and find your workflow.
2. Confirm the Status is “Active” (not Draft or Disabled).
3. Review the WHEN trigger — does it match the exact event you performed? For field-change triggers, the field must actually change value, not just be saved with the same value.
4. Review the IF conditions — test with a record that you know meets all conditions.
5. Check the Workflow Execution Log for the record — it will show whether the workflow was triggered, whether conditions passed, and what actions were taken (or why they were skipped).
6. If the workflow involves sending emails, also check Why Are My Emails Not Sending?.

Still stuck?

If the execution log shows no entry for your workflow, the trigger is not matching. Double-check the trigger event type (create vs. update) and the specific field/value conditions. If the log shows the workflow fired but the action failed, the error message in the log will indicate the cause.