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What This Article Helps With

Use this guide when an automation rule, approval policy, or SLA-driven action did not trigger as expected.

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Common Symptoms

  • a rule exists but no action happened
  • an approval request was expected but never appeared
  • a release governance decision did not fire
  • an escalation or notification did not send
  • a Helix action approval stayed pending
  • an approved MCP action did not create records

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Most Likely Causes

  • the trigger event never happened
  • the subject type did not match the target item
  • conditions did not evaluate to true
  • the rule is in draft or inactive state
  • the approval or notification target role had no matching users
  • the payload used for testing did not contain a real subject identifier

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Steps to Troubleshoot

  1. Open the rule or approval policy.
  2. Confirm it is active.
  3. Review the trigger event and target subject.
  4. Review the conditions carefully.
  5. Check the action configuration for missing fields.
  6. Verify the target record actually matches the rule conditions.
  7. If you tested it manually, confirm the payload included the correct subject identifier.
  8. Review automation runs, logs, or related notifications if available.
  9. Re-test with a known-valid example record.

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Helix or MCP Approval Did Not Run

If a Helix approval card appeared but the action did not run, check:
  • the approval was not rejected
  • the user approving the action has permission to run it
  • the access token is still valid
  • the tenant, team, release, and certification context are correct
  • the approval ID is present
  • the payload preview contains the required fields
  • the idempotency key was not already used for a completed action
For remediation work packages, the payload should include a parent story title and child task titles. Helix should create the parent story first, capture the real parent ID, and then create child tasks under that parent.

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Approved Action Created the Wrong Records

If the action ran but created unexpected records:
  • review the approval payload that was approved
  • confirm the selected organization and team context
  • check whether the release or certification context was stale
  • ask Helix which records it read before proposing the action
  • reject future actions that do not cite the expected records

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What Admins Should Review

  • approver role membership
  • notification recipient configuration
  • policy scope and subject compatibility
  • whether the rule is tied to the correct lifecycle event