How to stop an automation run that's going the wrong way (and what happens to the emails, approvals and half-done steps)

The night we couldn't stop an automation run

On the night of 6 October we were testing the new Content Studio on our own account. One run had already burned through most of its budget on rewrites that were not helping, so I went into the database and set it to cancelled by hand. Thirty seconds later it was running again. The worker that was holding it had no idea I had touched anything, and it simply wrote its own status over mine.

I remember saying out loud, "I stopped it, why is it still going?" Nobody had an answer, because there wasn't one. There was no proper stop. We let it run out and failed it at the spending limit instead. That evening is the reason the stop button exists.

When owners ask us about this, in a support chat or on a demo call, the question usually sounds like one of these:

"How do I make it stop?" "It sent the wrong reminder to everyone, can I cancel it?" "If I turn it off, does the stuff it already did go away?"

What they are really worried about is a customer getting something wrong or getting it twice, and being left with a mess they have to clean up by hand.

It happens outside Octabiz too: in a Home Assistant community thread from July 2020, user qjiang888 set a 2 hour delay to turn off all the power in their home, came back after one hour, and the power went off anyway (the thread has 45.8k views, so they are far from alone).

Below, I'll walk through why you need a way to stop an automation run in Octabiz now that automations start on their own, where the stop button is, what happens to each part of a run when you press it, and the one check I'd do before switching anything on.

Why this matters more now that automations start on their own

Since v1.20.421, automations in Octabiz start on their own from real events: an invoice sent, paid, partly paid or overdue, a new customer and so on. Since v1.20.416 a workflow can also run on a schedule or start from a signed webhook.

You are often not the one pressing go any more. You need a way to press stop when a run heads the wrong way.

Two things in v1.20.421 help before anything runs. An automation needs owner approval before it goes live. Syncs, imports and previously imported invoices don't trigger anything, so switching an automation on won't replay your history.

Here is how I see it:

Most owners think the fix for an automation going wrong is building it more carefully. I don't buy that. You can't test every customer, every odd invoice, every time a supplier changes their email. Something will go sideways eventually, and when it does, the only thing that matters is how fast you can make it stop.

How to stop an automation run in Octabiz

The stop button sits on the run itself, on the Runs page. Stopping one run is not the same as switching the automation off. Switching it off stops new runs from starting. Stopping a run ends that one run and leaves the automation on.

Other tools draw the same line. In Apple Shortcuts, turning off Enable This Automation means it will not run automatically in future. In Action1 you go to History, select the running automation and click Stop to end the one that is going now.

What happens to emails, approvals and half-finished steps when you stop

This is the part people ask about most, so here it is in full:

When you press stop, anything already sent stays sent. We can't pull an email back. Nothing after that point goes out. If the run was waiting for an approval or for someone to answer questions, that request is closed, so nobody gets asked about a run that is over. If a step was halfway through, it is allowed to finish, but the next step never starts. Records it already created or changed stay as they are, so you check those yourself. What it spent so far stays on the run, so you can still see the cost. Runs it started stop too.

The money the run has spent

Since v1.20.402, costs are charged to the run as calls happen. A step that times out still records what it used. An agent stops once the run budget is spent (the cost ledger came with the engine foundations in v1.20.401).

On top of each run's budget, every plan has a monthly allowance of runs, AI steps and texts. Past the limit, new runs and AI steps pause. Texts are skipped and managers get a notice (v1.20.421).

What we'd check before switching on an automation

So yes, a stop button beats a smarter workflow. Before you switch on anything that starts by itself from a new invoice or a new customer, run it once on yourself and know where the stop button is.

If you want something to copy, this is that advice as a list you can keep next to your screen:

If you think a smarter workflow would save you more trouble than a stop button, tell us why; we'd like to hear where you disagree.