Qlik Cloud Analytics: Button executing automation errors out with Bad Request or You are not authorized to run this automation

[tober]

Pressing a button that executes an Automation fails with:

Bad request

An additional error may be shown:

You are not authorized to run this automation

These errors are typically seen after changing the Automation's owner. 

Resolution

Bad request

When the owner of an Automation is changed, the system automatically disables that Automation. In this context, this error indicates that the automation is disabled or that its run mode is incorrectly configured.

To resolve this:

• Ensure the Automation has its status set to Enabled (A)
  
  If it is set to Disabled, click the Actions (...) menu (B) to enable it.
  
  
  
  
• Verify the Automation's Run mode is set to Triggered. If the Automation is set to a different mode (such as Manual or Scheduled), the button will not be able to initiate it.
  
  
  1. Open your Automation and select the Start node
  2. In Inputs, verify Run Mode to be set to Triggered
     
     
     
     
     

You are not authorized to run this automation

This error can occur after re-enabling an automation and the execution token having changed.

Follow these steps to re-establish the connection:

1. Navigate to the sheet where the button containing the automation execution action is located.
2. Edit the sheet and locate the Actions and navigation pane.
3. Find the specific action configured to trigger the automation.
4. In the Automation section, remove the currently selected automation name.
   
   
   
   
5. Click Edit sheet to save this change. This signals the system that the automation link has been cleared.
6. Click Edit sheet and navigate back to the same Automation action.
7. Use the dropdown arrow in the Automation field to select the desired automation you want to be triggered.
8. Click Edit sheet to save the re-selected automation.
9. Verify that the button now successfully executes the automation without errors.

As a rule, only use the option to renew the token when strictly needed for security reasons.

Cause

This is a known design limitation.

As specified in both the dialog and in the documentation (source), “Renewing the execution token for the following automation(s) will immediately break any reference to the automation(s) through a trigger URL or Qlik Sense button object. This action cannot be undone.”

The purpose of introducing the option to renew the token was to harden the security of automations when it comes to webhooks. With this feature, administrators now have the option to break all current webhook connections to an automation if they feel that security concerns require that.

Since buttons also use the same execution tokens, they will also be affected.

The option to renew the execution token should therefore only be used when strictly required by security concerns, e.g., if a token was exposed publicly.

Environment

• Qlik Cloud Analytics
• Qlik Automate