Union tool unable to output after error in single input

[JCornn]

I'm new here and I apologize if I am describing my issue incorrectly, thank you.

My workflow reads invoices from a databank and has macros for each invoice type to be processed in a certain manor. 

The problem I am having if even one of the invoices/macros has an error the whole workflow comes to a stop at the union tool that I have highlighted.

My goal is to find a way that if one of the input invoices/macros has an error that it won't prevent the rest of them from being output from the union tool. 

[Jean-Balteryx]

Hi @JCornn ,

Unfortunately, when there is an error in your workflow, it stops executing.

Could you share a screenshot of your workflow with error ?

[JCornn]

Thank you for helping @Jean-Balteryx ,

This issue is that when one input has an error it prevents any output from the union:

The goal would be where if one of inputs has an error it can still pass through the others as if the one with the error was never connected:

Doing so may require something other than a union tool I would presume. 

[apathetichell]

can you post a screengrab of the macro error message? some errors are fine - some require figuring out the underlying cause... Let's first try to figure out why your macro is giving you an error and then figure out if we need conditional routing or some other solution...

[JCornn]

Our team has traced down the issues, and are just trying to see if we can get the output on union for any other issues that arise in the future.

[apathetichell]

what's your union error? Perhaps add a count tool coming out of the macro and the append it to the macro data stream - this will be 0 if there are no records. you can then use a union and then drop the count column. It's a bit hard to say otherwise.... In terms of the macro errors - are you reading in multi-schema and all .xls/.xlsx/.csv sheets? Do you need a standalone macro to do that? If so - I have one up on the gallery. The error re: field17 should be fairly straightforward... you can use field info to test for it... I might do field info - concatenate the field names in summarize and then test for it append that to my stream and then test for it with a filter...

[JCornn]

Sorry if this wasn't clear: the issue with the union is that, in the event of one of the macro input streams causing an error, none of the data from the other macro input streams makes it past the union tool. What I was wondering is if there is a way to ensure that the data from the other streams (not the one with an error) are able to make it through the rest of the workflow after the union. Let me know if I can clarify that further for you, appreciate your willingness to help with this.

[apathetichell]

Can you post the exact error message the machine is giving you in red. My assumption without seeing it is that the union tool is requiring two inputs. Macro 1 when it fails prevents a second input from being there. There are fatal macro errors and non-fatal macro errors. I do not know which one you have and it is my understanding that you have a Union error. My instructions above are for on-the-fly solutions to an empty feed from a macro (count records tool will count 0 records when no records are there - which creates a new field) -  this would prevent the union tool failure. Is that what you want? not - you also could do a filter and only join if the count records tool is >1 and otherwise continue down the datastream. This can create additional problems when you union in later.

[JCornn]

It sounds like there is not a good way to allow errors to pass through union.

We will need to rethink some things before progressing.

Thank you for the help!

[apathetichell]

I think the count records isn't a bad solution... You can drop it (and again it will be zero if there are no records) and then your workflow will proceed as before... without seeing the specific end of workflow error messages it's hard to really specify. The earlier messages seemed more straight forward -and  I do have a multi file/multi-schema macro/multi-sheet for .xls/.xlsx/.csv if you need it.