Wait for Human Task

Wait for Human Task

Type: human-task-wait  ·  Package: Human Task Activities v1.3.3  ·  Output: object

Waits for the decision on a task created with Create Human Task. The robot checks the task every few seconds and continues as soon as someone decides it, cancels it or the task expires. If the wait times out, it doesn’t fail: it returns status = "timeout" so the flow can decide what to do.

It’s meant for decisions that take minutes. If the decision can take hours or days, it’s better to use onCompleteProcess in Create Human Task and end the process, instead of keeping the robot busy waiting.

How it works

1. Checks the status of the taskId task.
2. If the task is completed, cancelled or expired, it finishes and returns the result.
3. If it’s still open (pending or claimed), it waits pollSeconds seconds and checks again.
4. If timeoutMinutes minutes pass without the task closing, it returns the task with status = "timeout". With cancelOnTimeout = true, it also cancels it (with the reason “No decision within N min (process timeout).”) so nobody decides it late. If that cancellation fails, only a warning is logged and the activity still returns timeout.

If the execution is stopped while waiting, the activity fails with “Cancelled while waiting for the human task.”.

It can only wait for tasks created by a robot in the same environment; a task from another environment, or created another way, responds as if it didn’t exist.

Required parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
taskId	string	—	Task id: the id output of Create Human Task. E.g.: task["id"].

Optional parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
timeoutMinutes	int	60	Maximum minutes to wait. An empty, 0 or negative value uses 60.
pollSeconds	int	15	Seconds between checks. The minimum is 5: a lower value is raised to 5.
cancelOnTimeout	bool	false	On timeout, cancel the task so a late decision doesn’t trigger onCompleteProcess (a linked queue item is released).

Output

Returns an object (dictionary) with:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Task id.
status	string	completed, cancelled, expired or timeout (the wait ran out).
title	string	Task title.
decision	string	The chosen option (e.g. Aprobar). If the task was cancelled, cancelada; null if it expired or the wait ran out.
comment	string	Comment of whoever decided (for a cancellation, the reason).
fields	Dictionary	Fields the person filled in. E.g.: result["fields"]["approved_amount"]. With a form, tables arrive as lists of rows (each row with all of its columns; empty ones as null) and files as references you download with Download Human Task File.
form	Dictionary	With a form: its name and version. Without a form, null.

Common errors

Message	Cause and fix
'taskId' is required.	taskId is missing.
… HTTP 404: … (task not found)	The id isn’t valid, the task belongs to another environment or wasn’t created by a robot. Pass the id Create Human Task returned.
Cancelled while waiting for the human task.	The execution was stopped during the wait.
Human task activities require a Zoan Automation runtime context. Missing: …	The process isn’t running from Zoan Cloud or from the Designer signed in.

Errors while reading the task arrive with the prefix “Could not wait for the human task: ”. A timeout is not an error.

Example

Create Human Task   title = "Validate the supplier's tax id"
                    data = { "Supplier": "Test customer", "Tax id read": "900.000.000-0" }
                    fields = { "tax_id": "Correct tax id:text*" }
                    assignRole = "tenant-admin"   → output: task
Wait for Human Task   taskId = task["id"]   timeoutMinutes = 20
                      cancelOnTimeout = true   → output: result
If   condition = result["status"] == "completed" && result["decision"] == "Aprobar"
 ├─ then:
 │    Set Variable   name = taxId   value = result["fields"]["tax_id"]
 └─ else:
      Throw   message = "Tax id not validated: " + str(result["status"])

cancelOnTimeout and onCompleteProcess

If the task was created with onCompleteProcess, cancelling it via cancelOnTimeout does not run that process: the robot did it, and it already knows there was no decision. That way, a late decision doesn’t trigger it either, because the task is already closed. If the task is linked to a queue (queueName), the item is released anyway: it returns to the queue with Decision.Status = "cancelled".

Always check status

Branch on status before reading decision: a cancelled, expired or timeout task has no option chosen by a person.

Related activities

• Create Human Task — create the task to wait for.
• Cancel Human Task — cancel the task at another point of the flow.