Admin settings – Workflow Executions

The Workflow Executions page in the Alerts & Schedules section of the Admin menu shows the recent history of workflow activity. To view the Workflow Executions page, you must be assigned a role that contains the see_schedules and chat_with_agent permissions.

You can view workflows on the Admin settings – Workflows page. The workflow specifies when content should be sent to specific addresses.

A new workflow is created each time that content is sent. For example, if a workflow specifies sending specific content to certain addresses every Monday, then Looker will make a new workflow each Monday to send that content to the specified addresses.

Filter workflows by execution status

At the top of the Workflow Executions page, you can filter the workflows by job status:

  • All: all recent workflows
  • Running: only workflows that are running
  • Successful: only workflows that were completed successfully
  • Failed: only workflows that failed to be completed successfully

Information included

The following information is included for each workflow execution or job:

Column Definition
Time When the workflow execution began
Status Whether the workflow execution is complete (green checkmark) or returned an error (red alert icon)
Stage The current stage of a running workflow execution
User The user that created the workflow
Source The type of content, displayed as Workflow
Name The name of the workflow, which also serves as a link to the workflow content
Type The delivery destination, such as Email or Slack
Message For a failed execution, the error message. For a successful execution, success
Runtime How long the workflow execution ran or has been running

Troubleshoot workflow execution error messages

You can use the error messages displayed in the Message column to diagnose and resolve workflow execution failures. Common error messages include the following:

Recipient and allowlist errors

  • Unauthorized emails in plan: ["<email_address>"]:
    • Cause: One or more recipient email addresses belong to a domain that is not included in your Looker instance's email domain allowlist.
    • Resolution: Add the recipient's domain to the admin email allowlist, or edit the workflow to remove unauthorized email addresses.

Agent and entity errors

  • Agent execution failed: unexpected message received:
    • Cause: The Gemini Data Agent encountered a runtime error or unexpected response while interpreting directives or generating the natural language insights summary.
    • Resolution: Review and refine the natural language directives in the workflow configuration to ensure instructions are clear and specific.
  • entity WorkflowAgent missing:
    • Cause: The primary data agent, dashboard, or Explore associated with the workflow was deleted, renamed, or modified.
    • Resolution: Recreate or update the workflow with an active data agent or accessible Explore.

User permission and account errors

  • User permission or model access failures:
    • Cause: The user who created the workflow lacks access to the models underlying the Explore or dashboard.
    • Resolution: Ensure the workflow owner has the required permissions in Admin > Users / Roles, or recreate the workflow under an active, authorized user.
  • Disabled user account:
    • Cause: The workflow owner's Looker user account has been disabled or deactivated.
    • Resolution: Re-enable the user account or recreate the workflow under an active user.

Scheduler queue and timeout errors

  • Job is no longer processing @<state> (where <state> is execute or deliver) or Job was expected to dequeue by @<time>:
    • Cause: The workflow remained in the scheduler queue for an hour or longer without being completed, typically due to temporary database connection timeouts or system resource constraints.
    • Resolution: The workflow will attempt to run again at its next scheduled interval. You can also programmatically retry failed runs using the Looker API (run_scheduled_plan_once).