Troubleshoot Task and Document Distribution

Written by Uday Kumar Updated

Who this is for. SuperAdmins, and anyone asking why an invoice arrived without an owner. Access. Requires the TEAM_MANAGEMENT permission and the feature enabled for the tenant. See the Roles and Access Reference. Applies to. Both products, with a separate checklist for each kind of rule.

A rule that looks right but assigns nothing has a short list of usual causes. Work down this article in order. The first few checks account for most cases.

Check a document rule

AP Invoices only. Work down this list in order. The first few catch most cases.

  1. Is it a document rule? On an agent that also runs AP Helpdesk, a task rule never assigns a document however well its conditions match. Check the tab the rule sits under.

  2. Is the policy active, and where does the rule sit in the order? An earlier, broader rule may be winning. Check every rule above it.

  3. Was the vendor identified? Document distribution runs once the vendor is resolved. Where the vendor could not be identified, the document is created without an assignee whatever the rules say.

  4. Does the document hold a value in that field? A condition matches only when there is something to compare. The usual blanks are no entity resolved, no address on the document, and an unmatched vendor leaving the supplier fields empty.

  5. Is it a vendor record attribute on an unmatched vendor? Supplier Group, Supplier Default Payment Method and Supplier Category all need a matched vendor record.

  6. Does a range rule still have both halves? Both the range starts with and range ends with rows need to be present.

  7. Did you mean contains rather than in? The in operator is an exact match.

  8. For a sender rule, is the value the sending address or domain rather than the vendor address printed on the invoice?

  9. Is the chosen person still eligible? Where their role has changed, the match is discarded and the document is created without an assignee.

  10. Was the document reprocessed? The assignee stays as it was, because document distribution does not run a second time.

  11. Was the document added by hand? Then it belongs to whoever created it, and sender rules cannot apply to it at all.

Check a task rule

AP Helpdesk only. Work down this list for a task that reached the wrong person or nobody. Two of the checks are not rules.

  1. Is it a task rule? A document rule never assigns a task, however well its conditions match. Check the tab the rule sits under, and remember both tabs number their rules from their own sequence, so the same Rule ID can exist on each.

  2. Is Assignee Hold holding the thread? Where it is on, a reply on a thread that already carries a task goes to that thread’s existing assignee. See Build Assignment Rules.

  3. Was a task created at all? Task Suppression on the agent stops the agent raising a task for some messages. No task means nothing for a rule to assign.

  4. Is the person eligible for AP Helpdesk? Tasks reach only users whose role covers AP Helpdesk, and documents only users whose role covers AP Invoices. A rule pointing at someone without the right access still matches, and the task is left unassigned. This is the most common surprise on an agent running both products, because the rule really is correct and the access is what is missing.

  5. Where does the rule sit in the order? A broader task rule above it wins first. Order is counted within the Task Rules tab alone.

  6. Is there a default assignee at the end of Task Rules? A rule with no conditions on the document tab does nothing for tasks. Each tab needs its own.

Questions that come up often

Table 1. Common questions

What you see

What it means

The rule is not routing what I expected

On an agent running both products, check the Document and Task selector on the rule. A rule created under the wrong kind is scoped to the wrong work. The two kinds also offer different condition attributes.

I want to stop one rule for a while

Individual rules cannot be switched off. They can be created, deleted and reordered. To stop a policy assigning, disable the policy from the distribution policies list.

I cannot deactivate a team

The team is the target of an assignment rule. Repoint or remove the rule, then deactivate the team.

I cannot see a document a colleague mentioned

Each tab opens filtered to your own work. Clear the filter to see everything.

The buttons on a document are unavailable

Either the document has no assignee, or it belongs to someone else. The reason shown on the control says which.

A document shows AI Agent

The agent processed and wrote it on its own. Where the write did not succeed, the document is released unassigned for a person to pick up.

Worked examples

Each row is one rule unless the description says otherwise. Order them from the most specific at the top to the broadest at the bottom, because the first matching rule wins.

Table 2. Routing recipes

What you want

How to set it up

Everything from one company goes to the person who owns that relationship

Email From Domain contains the company domain, assign to that person.

One billing contact goes to a specialist

Email From in that single address, assign to the specialist.

Split the vendor list alphabetically across two people

Two rules. Vendor Name range a to m to the first person, n to z to the second.

A subsidiary goes to its local AP person

Entity is that entity, assign to the local person.

All invoices for one site go to the regional team

Address contains the city and state, assign to the team.

Utilities invoices go to one team

Supplier Category is your utilities category, assign to the team.

Everything else spreads across the AP team

A final rule with no conditions, assigned to your AP team.

On an agent that also runs AP Helpdesk, add the matching task rules alongside these, including a second rule with no conditions at the end of the task rules.

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