API Workflow Only Executing Update Action a Few Times

I have an API Workflow which calls an external API to retrieve a list of records and creates a new thing (“Search Result”) for each of the records returned. The Workflow consists of the Create a New Thing action, followed by an action updating another thing called “Saved Search.”

The update to “Saved Search” adds the “Search Result” created in the previous step to a list field called “Results List.”

The problem arises when I execute a test of the setup… I can see the workflow API is successfully creating several new “Search Results,” however only seems to update the “Saved Search” 3-6 times. The number of updates made had varied throughout testing, and I’m at a loss for a solution.

Any help would be appreciated!

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Yup, sucks doesn’t it. Being worked on at the moment, apparently.

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All you can really do is increase the delay on the workflows, so they don’t clash.

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Oh man, that’s a pretty big blow! Any advice on calculating “optimal” delay? 0.5 and 1 second don’t seem to make a massive difference, which worries me…

I have mine set at 3 seconds, which seemed to work ok.

But yes, exactly the same situation, create thing … update another thing with the result of the first step …

First step creates all the things, but it is variable as to what gets added to the list.

Have yet to hear back about my bug, so I assume that because it wasn’t fixed all that quickly … it is not a quick fix.

For now I think we have to be creative about working around it, which is not easy all the time :frowning:

Sorry, wish I had better news.

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I’ve experienced that several times and my “solution” has been to create a multi-step process where one button creates, and another button updates. Definitely not a desired design, and gives the appearance of a hack, but it “works” until something like being asked for is developed.

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Thanks both! They should definitely take a look at it (although I agree with @NigelG that it’s likely a more complex issue than it first lets on).

I’ve been experimenting all day and it seems that the best solution (for me at least), is to bite the bullet and restructure some of my data so as to omit the second action. Passing the UID of the “Saved Search” to each of the “Search Results” when the Workflow API is triggered does the trick, but it means that every user needs to essentially own an individual copy of the “Search Result” (since it’s stamped with a particular UID).

Definitely presents some potentially major problems in the long-run…

Staring to wonder if Data API may be the solution to (at least some) of this. Thoughts?

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