Sub-workflow not receiving data from parent workflow?

[wewu]

Hey all, having an issue with n8n sub-workflow not receiving data from the parent workflow. I’ve searched other topics and can’t quite find the right fix for my situation.

Pretty basic- user submits a form with Company Name and Company Website. Those parameters are passed to a sub-workflow where I have a handful of OpenAI queries running in parallel.

The form works fine, here is the output

And then I have the Execute Sub-workflow node set up this way.

But then, inside of the sub workflow, I can see no data is passed through, which kills my OpenAI prompts which leverage those variables from the form.

Certainly, I am doing something wrong here, but the UI is telling me that all data is passed through automatically. What am I screwing up?

TIA!

---

Information on your n8n setup

• n8n version: [email protected]
• Database (default: SQLite): default
• n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main): unsure
• Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app): n8n cloud
• Operating system: Mac OS (Apple Silicon) running in Chrome

[mohamed3nan]

Hi @wewu, welcome to community!

I think the issue might be that you’re not linking the correct subworkflow name correctly:

Please double-check this by clicking this arrow to see whether it redirects to the subworkflow or something else:

[wewu]

Thanks @mohamed3nan! So, this is hooked up correctly I believe. My primary workflow is called Account Research and my Sub-workflow is called Research, and I am plugged into Research.

I tried the other way around but got an error. So I believe this is correct.

Note, when I run the sub-workflow, I don’t get an error, I just get null values as the actual values are not passed though.

Any other ideas?

[mohamed3nan]

While I believe it’s a linking issue, you can try using both triggers in the same workflow,

here is working example:

[wewu]

Hey @mohamed3nan sorry, I’m not understanding. Day 1 of using n8n

I made a quick 3 minute Loom video if this would help? I think its linked correctly. I’ve tried all possible ways of linking and its not working in any scenario.

Here is the video: Troubleshooting Workflow Data Passing Issues 🔧 | Loom

Thanks for your help!

[mohamed3nan]

Hi @wewu,
Thanks for taking the time to explain the video, this was really helpful.
From what I see, it’s linked correctly, and you’re right.

Now, in your subworkflow “Account Researcher”, when you click on the “Execution” tab, do you see the last execution? And is there no output shown there?

[wewu]

@mohamed3nan all green! See image below.

Workflows are successful, just not passing the data through, so OpenAI returns an incorrect result. You can see these json snippets are not working, as the data is not passed through to the sub-workflow as expected.

[mohamed3nan]

Hi @wewu

Great! Could you please double-click on this:

Then click on “View parent execution xxxxx”:

This will open the main workflow execution so we can see exactly where the issue is,
for example:

Next, double-click on the “On form submission” node to check whether it outputs data or not.

for example:

Also, make sure to remove any pinned data, clean the workflow, save, and try again.

[wewu]

Hey @mohamed3nan tbh, not sure what it did, but it seems to be working now. Ill wrap this up and test and will report back! Thanks for your help, hopefully this is resolved!