Automations after a status change

Lee Ackerman

Hi,

One of the things I'm using Smartsheets for is a "stocklist" of vehicles within our business. On this stocklist, we have the opportunity for sales execs to put vehicles on hold and depending on certain criteria, this can be for 24 hours, 48 hours, or 72 hours.

This is actioned on request by managers, and we have a dropdown list for hold statuses on a column.

Looking at automations, is there a way that we can set these to automatically revert back to "available" when the timeframe is up?

At the moment it is a manual process where we look at the date and time a cell value was edited and then make the decision whether to release the stock back as available. In an ideal world, we would pick the length of time, and once that length is time is up, they would put themselves back as available.

I have looked at and played with the automations, but I can't get my head around a way to do this. And looking at the help information, I still can't.

I am hoping that someone who is a bit more advanced with Smartsheets might be able to clarify if this is a possible option or not and, if so, how it could be achieved.

Many thanks in advance!

Lee.

Debbie Sawyer

@Lee Ackerman

HI Lee, yes. You can set up a helper column as a checkbox that is driven by a nested IF function based on the date that status went on and the type of hold status. As soon as the duration in the hold status has been added to the date set and that time has elapsed, the check box can tick itself, which would fire an automation to change the hold status back to your chosen state (i.e. available again) and then turn the check off too.

I would be happy to guide you through the writing of this function if you'd like a little help.

Good luck

Debbie

debbie.sawyer@smarterbusinessprocesses.com

Lee Ackerman

@Debbie Sawyer

Hi Debbie,

That's an interesting way to do it and not a way I would have ever figured out myself! I think I understand the idea, so I'll have a go at testing it myself this afternoon as I would like to understand it fully, I'll let you know how I get on. If I'm still stuck on this I'll take up your offer of further help.

Thanks for getting back to me with this solution idea.

Many thanks,

Lee.

Debbie Sawyer

@Lee Ackerman

Just as an aside, your Order Status has been set up as a MultiSelect dropdown list. Will you ever have 2 different states selected on 1 single row? If not, I would recommend turning the column into a single select, then you won't have to have the concern that is the valid Order status is the 2nd option selected (by mistake) that it won't fire the trigger.

If you need the Order Status to be multi-select (i.e. more than 1 state is applicable to 1 order) then you will need to nest the HAS function into the formula too, so that your formula considers all selected states and not just the first one.