Problem

Having the context that when trying to create a rule that uses Branch rule / related entities to change the page owner on a set of pages based on a CQL query, the "Then: Change page owner" fails if the new owner doesn't have edit permissions in all pages.

The audit log shows a "Bad Request (400) Trace ID:" with a GUID for each entry returned by the Branch rule. The root cause of the automation failure is the pages being acted on by the automation having page restrictions that result in API call failures.

Action details:
Branch rule / related entities
Evaluated:
(owner ='<OWNER-AAID>' and type='page') AND space in ("<SPACE-KEY>")
Change page owner
Failed to change page owner.
Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>, Bad Request (400) Trace ID: <REQUEST-TRACE-ID>

Suggested Solution

Improve the error reporting in the audit log from the API. If the API already provides a more detailed error message, ensure it gets passed back into the audit log in the automation.

Also, consider taking the entire error message to see if the support team can trace it back to see the actual error for the API call.

Why This Is Important

More detailed error messages would help users quickly identify the root cause of issues, enabling them to implement workarounds or solutions more efficiently. This would improve the user experience and reduce the volume of support requests.

Workaround

The workaround for this issue is to add an intermediate step, by applying a 'Restricted Page' action, and give the attempted new page owner edit access through that action before attempting to make them the page owner:

A manual procedure would require checking if the pages have manual restrictions and if the new owner can edit the pages. If the new owner lacks access, adding edit permissions for them allows the page owner change to be made manually. After editing the page restrictions, the automation can be re-run successfully.