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Troubleshooting an agent team run that stopped at an approval step in GTM One

Learn why an agent team run is waiting at, or stopped by, a Human Approval step, and what to do next.

Srivatsa MarthiSrivatsa MarthiPrincipal Product Manager

Learn why an agent team run is waiting at, or stopped by, a Human Approval step, and what to do next.

Overview

A Human Approval step pauses the run and asks the person chosen as approver to review the work so far. The run waits as Pending review until that person decides, or until the step's timeout passes. The run does not keep working while it waits, and it picks up again at the next step after an approval.

Before you start

  • Approvers only. Only the approvers named on the step can approve or reject. Anyone else sees "You are not listed as an approver for this step. Only designated approvers can take action."
  • Who can change the step. Changing the approver, timeout or reminder means editing the team, which depends on your role. Ask your ZoomInfo admin if the builder's controls are turned off.
  • Credits. A run that pauses, is rejected or times out is charged for the AI work it did up to that point. A run that continues after approval is charged separately for the work it does after.

Find out what happened to the run

  1. Open the run and click the Human Approval step. See How to view agent team runs and results in GTM One.
  2. Read the run status and the step's output.
  3. Find the case below and follow the fix.

The run shows Pending review for a long time

The approver has not decided yet. Ask them to open the run and choose Approve & continue, Adjust... or Reject.... Check that the notification channels on the step reached them: a channel that is not connected shows Not connected on the step. The approver is reminded 4, 8, 12 or 24 hours after the request, as set on the step, and only if the reminder is earlier than the timeout. A failed notification never stops the run from pausing, so the request still waits in the run.

The run shows Rejected and the step shows "Approval decision: rejected"

The approver rejected it, or the request timed out with the step set to reject on timeout (the default). Either way the run stops and cannot be resumed. The step's output reads "Approval decision:" followed by the decision, then "Approver feedback:" with the reason when one was entered, who responded and when. The What went wrong card reads "There was an approval request that was declined in this step." or "...that expired in this step."

  1. Read the approver's feedback in the step's output, and change the work or the step if it asked for that.
  2. Start a new run. See How to run an agent team manually in GTM One.
  3. If requests regularly time out, ask whoever edits the team to choose a longer timeout (8, 12, 24 or 48 hours; 12 hours by default) or to turn on Approve automatically on timeout. Only turn that on when it is safe for the next steps to run with nobody reviewing.

A run was approved by timeout

With Approve automatically on timeout on, a request nobody answers is approved when the timeout passes and the run continues. Later steps that send email or change your CRM then run without a review.

What the approver is shown

The panel shows a summary of the completed work and what happens next if the request is approved. GTM One writes it from the earlier steps' results and the actions configured after the approval, and it spends AI credits as an agent team run does. If the summary cannot be written, the panel shows the previous step's output followed by "If approved, the workflow will continue with:" and the next step, or "If approved, this checkpoint will complete the workflow." A long summary is cut and ends with "[summary truncated]". The approval pause itself is never skipped because a summary failed.

If you see an error

  • "Approval request was rejected." The run was rejected at an approval step. It cannot be reinitiated; start a new run.
  • "You are not listed as an approver for this step. Only designated approvers can take action." You are not an approver on this step. Ask the approver, or whoever edits the team, to add you.
  • "This request has already been responded to." Someone has already decided. Open the run to see the decision.
  • "No approver is chosen. Choose who should review this step before the run continues." The step has no approver. Choose one in the builder and save.

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