Would you like to find out why a Thrive Action did or didn’t run after someone submitted your form?
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the Submission Log for Thrive Actions in Thrive Architect. We’ll cover what each status means and how to fix an action that can’t run. All you need is a form with at least one Thrive Action.
- Opening and Reading the Submission Log
- Understanding Each Status
- Filtering the Log
- Confirming That an Action Saved
- Fixing an Action That Won’t Run
- Frequently Asked Questions
The log belongs to a form, so your form needs at least one Thrive Action. If you haven’t added one yet, see our guide on running Thrive Actions after a form submission.
Before you get started, make sure Thrive Architect is installed and activated on your WordPress site.
Opening and Reading the Submission Log
Every form keeps its own submission log, and you open it from the Thrive Actions tab. In the Thrive Architect editor, select the form and switch to the Thrive Actions connection tab. Then click All logs at the top of the action list.
If your form has no saved actions but the log already has entries, the tab shows a View submission log link with the number of entries instead.
The log lists every Thrive Action run for this form, newest first. Each row shows when the run happened and the email address of the person who submitted the form. It also shows the action that ran and a status label.
If a submission has no email address, the row shows the person’s WordPress display name when they were logged in. Otherwise, it reads “Anonymous submission.”
Times in the list are relative, such as “8 min ago.” To see what happened, click any row to expand it. The expanded row also shows the exact date and time of the run.
That time appears in your site’s time zone and is labeled “site time.” It matches the time zone set in your WordPress settings, not the time zone of your browser.
The log keeps the last 100 entries for each form. Older entries are trimmed automatically.
Next, let’s look at what each status label tells you.
Understanding Each Status
Every row has one of 4 statuses. Expanding a row explains it.
Scheduled Runs
A Scheduled run is waiting. This happens when the action has a time delay. The expanded row shows when the run will fire and how long after the submission that is.
When the run happens, the row updates to Fired or Failed. If you remove or edit the action before then, the run is cancelled instead (see Skipped Runs below).
Fired Runs
A Fired run completed. The expanded row says what the action did, such as which product it gave access to or which campaign it started. It also says whether the action fired immediately or after a delay.
If the submitted email didn’t belong to a WordPress user yet, the Apprentice access action creates one. The row notes this as “new WordPress user created from the submitted email.”
A run can also fire without changing anything. For example, if the person already had access to the product, the row reads “Already had access to – nothing changed.”
Not every run gets that far, which is where Skipped comes in.
Skipped Runs
A Skipped run never fired, and the expanded row tells you why. There are 3 common reasons.
The first reason is that the condition wasn’t met. The row shows the rule you set (after IF) and the value the person submitted (after GOT), so you can see why the two didn’t match.
Spacing and capitalization are ignored when matching, so a value shown here really didn’t match your rule. If the field was left empty or is no longer on the form, the row says that no value was submitted.
The second reason is that the run was cancelled. This happens when you remove or edit an action that still had a run waiting. The row reads “Cancelled – this run never fired” and gives the reason.
The third reason is anything else that stopped the action from needing to run. The row reads “Action skipped – it did not fire” and states the reason in plain words. For example, the Ultimatum campaign action skips a submission when a countdown is already running for that email.
The last status, Failed, means the action tried to run but hit an error.
Failed Runs
A Failed run tried to fire but returned an error. The expanded row is headed “Action failed” and shows the error message, plus a suggested next step when there is one.
If the action had already created a WordPress user from the submitted email before it failed, the row says so: “A WordPress user was created from the submitted email before this failed, and still exists.” That tells you the account is still on your site even though the action didn’t finish.
Failed runs aren’t retried automatically. The person who submitted the form still saw the form’s success message, and your other form connections were not affected.
Once you know what each status means, you can narrow the log down to the runs you care about.
Filtering the Log
At the top of the log, the status buttons show how many rows have each status. To show only one kind of run, click its button. For example, click Skipped to see every run that didn’t fire.
A status button only appears when the log has rows with that status, so you won’t see Failed until a run has failed. You can also search the log by submitter email or use the actions menu to show the runs of one action only.
Next, we’ll cover how to tell that an action saved, and how to fix one that can’t run.
Confirming That an Action Saved
When you finish setting up an action, click Continue at the bottom of the action window.
A short “Thrive Action saved.” message then appears at the bottom of the editor, and the action shows up in the list. As with other changes in the editor, the action is kept on your page once you save your work.
Fixing an Action That Won’t Run
Sometimes the Thrive Actions tab warns you about a problem before anyone submits the form. A saved action that can’t run shows a Won’t run label instead of Active. The card also tells you the fix, as a link inside the message.
For example, if Thrive Apprentice is switched off, the card for an Apprentice access action reads “Activate Thrive Apprentice: until then this action will not run.” To fix it, click the link to open Thrive Product Manager in a new tab. The form you’re editing stays open. On a site without Thrive Product Manager, the Activate and Update links open the WordPress Plugins screen instead.
The card has the same message for a plugin that isn’t installed (“Install”) or that needs a newer version (“Update”). To see why an action won’t run, hover over the info icon next to Won’t run.
Once the plugin is active again, the action resumes without any other changes. If your user account can’t install, activate, or update plugins, the card shows the message without a link, and the info icon still explains why the action won’t run.
An action with a condition can also be blocked when the form field it checks is removed from the form. The card then shows a Field missing label, and its message links to the fix. To choose a field that’s still on the form, click Pick another field.
The link opens the action’s settings. Once you pick a field and save, the action resumes.
A fixed action is saved the same way as a new one, as covered in the Confirming That an Action Saved section above.
That’s it! You now know how to open the Submission Log, read each status, and fix an action that can’t run. Next, learn how to add a condition and a delay to a Thrive Action, which are the settings behind Scheduled and Skipped runs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below, we’ve answered some of the most common questions about the Submission Log.
How many entries does my log keep?
The log shows up to the last 100 entries for each form. Older entries are trimmed automatically. For more on reading each row, see the Opening and Reading the Submission Log section above.
If a run fails, will it try again?
No. Failed runs aren’t retried automatically. The person who submitted the form still saw the form’s success message, and other connections on the form were not affected. For what a failed row shows, see the Failed Runs section above.
Why does my log say nothing changed for a fired run?
The action ran, but the result was already in place. For example, a grant access action reads “Already had access to – nothing changed” when the person already had that access. A revoke access action reads “No access to to revoke – nothing changed” when there was none to take away.
Why can’t I see a Failed or Scheduled button?
A status button only appears when the log has rows with that status. If every run so far has the same status, the buttons are hidden because there is nothing to filter. See the Filtering the Log section above for the other ways to narrow the list.
What happens to scheduled runs if I edit the action?
They are cancelled. Removing or editing an action cancels any of its runs that are still waiting, and the log shows each one as Skipped with the reason “The action was removed or edited before this run fired.” See the Skipped Runs section above for an example.
Which time zone does my log use?
The exact time in an expanded row uses your site’s time zone and is labeled “site time.”