Users, roles and assignment

Why does my process say "There is no assignee for the next step" or show a step as Unassigned?

The step's assignee resolves to nobody. Check the assignee source, make sure the user is active and matches User management exactly, publish, then reassign the stuck items.

Fix

Short answer: The step's assignee setting resolves to nobody when the item reaches it. Fix the source the step reads from, publish the process, then reassign the items that are already stuck.

Why it happens

  • A User management attribute the formula relies on, such as _created_by.Manager, is empty for the requester.
  • The assignee is deactivated or deleted.
  • An email or name in a dataset or form doesn't match User management exactly. The match is case-sensitive.
  • The matching dataset row has no approver value, or dropdown values have stray spaces.
  • An integration created the item, so _created_by is the integration's account, not the real requester.
  • Workflow changes were saved but not published.

How to fix it

  1. Open the process, go to Edit process > Workflow, and check the step's assignee settings.
  2. Check in Account administration > User management that the assignee is active. In the development environment, the user must also be added there.
  3. If the step uses a formula like _created_by.Manager, fill in that attribute for the requester in User management.
  4. If an integration creates the item, resolve the approver from a form field instead, for example user(Initiator_Email).Manager, and make sure that field is filled. See user expressions.
  5. If you look up users by email, from a dataset or with userandgroup(), keep emails in lower case and make them match User management exactly.
  6. For dataset assignment, add a filter so only the matching row is used, for example Business = form field. Fill in any row with an empty approver.
  7. Remove leading or trailing spaces from dropdown values that drive assignment.
  8. Publish the process, then test it with Simulate.
  9. Check whether the new approver has a task delegation that redirects their items.

To move items that are already stuck:

  1. Reassign them from Admin actions in a process, or from My items > Admin actions > Item reassignment.
  2. If an integration run failed, rerun it after the fix.

Important

When you reassign a group-assigned step, the new person must belong to the group assigned to that step.

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