What is fail-safe mode?

[marcellgalyas]

Hi Emarsys Automation Experts,

Sometimes I hear about the fail-safe mode with regard to Automation Center and Interactions programs. What is it and how does someone deal with it?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Marcell

[former_member34]

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Many thanks!

[WillYoung · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I am delighted that you only heard about fail-safe mode so far – I hope we can keep it this way. 😉

Fail-safe mode is a technical term for situations when there is an error with one of the program nodes, and Automation Center or Interactions cannot properly execute the journey. It is a safety check implemented to ensure that programs in error do not continue, potentially damanging your relationship with the customer.

The most common errors are:

1. One of the filters contains an invalid segment definition (a missing field, for example)
2. There is a mismatch between the program status and the campaign status
3. One of the API nodes (i.e., custom development nodes) does not respond.

The Automation Center retries to run the nodes multiple times before putting it to fail-safe mode. After several retries, the program status changes to fail-safe, and the system automatically opens a support ticket where we communicate the error and the possible next steps. For now, only our support colleagues can recover a program from the fail-safe mode.

In Interactions, at the moment, fail-safe can only occur when the Triggered Email's mainstream used in the program was deactivated. The main difference between Interactions & AC is that you can reactivate Interactions programs yourself if you managed to fix the underlying problem.

We plan to improve Automation's fail-safe mode this year by adding the possibility to recover AC programs by yourself, keeping the opportunity to lock the program if it requires in-depth investigation from our teams. When it happens, we will have specific notification messages that you can get with the improved Notification Center via email.

Our ultimate goal is to have safety nets across the platform that would properly validate all the assets and resources you might use in your automation programs.