When Bizomate is down for planned maintenance

Now and then Bizomate is taken down for a short, planned window to upgrade it. We announce it beforehand, and while it lasts every page shows a maintenance page instead. No new runs start during the window; scheduled workflows catch up once afterwards. Here is what to expect, and what to do about workflows that would have run in that time.

Who can do this

Everyone. Maintenance applies to every company and every page, the sign-in pages included.

Steps

Before the window

1. Watch for the announcement. Bizomate sends it to everyone in the companies it affects — by email, in the notification centre under Announcements, or both. Maintenance notices reach you whatever you chose in Notifications settings; they cannot be switched off.
2. A banner may also appear under the top bar of every page, for example Maintenance Sun 28 Sep, 02:00 to 04:00 (GMT+5:30). Scheduled workflows due then run once afterwards. Its times are in the time zone in your profile, and it names that zone after them — (GMT+5:30) in this example, or UTC when your profile has none. The announcement email gives the window in your own zone too. When there is more to read, the banner ends with See the details.
3. To hide the banner, select × at its right. It stays hidden in that browser, then comes back the day before the window.
4. Plan around the window. If a workflow is started by a service that does not retry failed webhooks, or by a form people fill in, pick a time outside the window for anything that must not be missed.

During the window

1. Any page you open shows Bizomate is down for planned maintenance, with a line about the work — for example We are upgrading the run engine. You can't sign in until we are back.
2. Read Back by for the time Bizomate expects to be back. It is shown in UTC, with your own time beside it from your device — for example 22:30 UTC, 27 September (your time: 04:00). The bar under it fills as the window passes, and the line beneath counts down the time left.
3. If the page shows Check the status page, select it for the latest news.
4. Leave the tab open. When maintenance is over, refresh the page to go back into Bizomate.

A page you already had open when the window began stays open, and a banner across it says, for example, Bizomate is under maintenance until today at 04:00. New runs wait until then; runs already going finish. That time is in the time zone in your profile. This banner cannot be hidden, and it goes when maintenance ends.

What happens next

The maintenance page says what happens to your workflows:

• Scheduled workflows that were due during maintenance run once when we're back.
• Webhooks sent to Bizomate during the window only arrive if the sending service retries them — most do.
• A workflow that missed several runs catches up once, not once per missed run.

In detail:

• No new run starts while maintenance lasts — not from a schedule, a webhook, a form, an app trigger or Run now. A run that was already going when the window began is left to finish.
• Schedules catch up once. A workflow whose schedule fell due during the window runs once when Bizomate is back — not once per missed time. A workflow on a five-minute schedule across a two-hour window runs once, not twenty-four times. That one run counts once towards your plan's runs.
• App triggers are checked again when we are back, so the new emails, rows or messages they look for during the window are still found.
• Webhooks and events from connected apps are refused with a "try again later" answer — HTTP 503, with a Retry-After header giving the seconds until Back by — so the service that sent them knows to send them again. Most services retry for a while; when one does after the window, the run starts as usual. A service that does not retry, or gives up before we are back, loses that event.

Good to know

• You cannot sign in during the window. The sign-in page opens, but after signing in you see the maintenance page.
• Forms are down too. Someone opening one of your forms during the window sees the maintenance page. Someone who sends a form that was already open sees the maintenance page with Your answers weren't sent. Try again after 22:30 UTC (your time: 04:00). — their device's time in the brackets — or Your answers weren't sent. Try again once Bizomate is back. when no end time is set. What they sent does not arrive.
• Which time zone each time is in. The banner before the window is in the time zone in your profile, and names it after the times. Back by on the maintenance page is in UTC, with your device's time beside it. The banner on a page left open uses the time zone in your profile — see Edit your profile: name, photo and time zone.
• This is not the same as reaching your plan's run limit. At the monthly limit, runs are skipped and never made up. After maintenance, missed schedules are made up once. See Why a run was skipped, not queued.
• A short drop without a window is not maintenance. A new release moves open pages across in a few seconds; you may see Reconnecting to Bizomate briefly, but Bizomate does not go down. See If Bizomate says it is reconnecting.

If something goes wrong

Related

• Using the notification centre
• Running a workflow on a schedule
• Starting a workflow from a webhook
• Why a run was skipped, not queued
• If Bizomate says it is reconnecting