Approval Workflows

Liz_Snavely

Hi - I'm new to setting up workflow approvals and am running into a bit of a snag.

I need multiple actions to occur after each approval level, prior to the next approval which includes changing the approval level status indicator and recording the approval date in three different fields for each step: an approval date field, last updated field and a date submitted to next level field.

Is that possible? If so, how do I set it up?

Here are the actual steps, if it helps...

Kimberly Loveless

@Liz_Snavely the record a date and change cell value functions are terminal actions. You will not be able to add conditions or actions after record a date/change cell value in your workflow. I am guessing that is what is causing the confusion.

So you would have to have automations like this....

You change it to L1 which triggers:

• Automation to record date in "Last Updated Date"
• Automation to record date in "Submitted to Level 1"
• Automation to send approval to L1 Approver (with additional action to record date in "L1 Approved Date" if approved)

L1 Approver approves request triggers:

• Automation to record date in "Last Updated Date"
• Automation to change cell value to "Approval Level 2"
• Automation to send approval to L2 Approver (with additional action to record date in "L2 Approved Date" if approved)
• Automation to record date in "Submitted to L2"

L2 Approver approves request triggers:

• Automation to record date in "Last Updated Date"
• Automation to change cell value to "Approval Level 3"
• Automation to send approval to L3 Approver (with additional action to record date in "L3 Approved Date" if approved)
• Automation to record date in "Submitted to L3"

L3 Approver approves request triggers:

• Automation to record date in "Last Updated Date"

So to go thru L1, L2, and L3 approvals you would have 12 separate automations set (with 3 of them containing 2 cations each) as outlined above.

Instead of using it as outlined above you could put all of the approvals in the same workflow as well instead of the recording the approval date in each.

Additionally, you could also use the automated column type for the "last updated date" which would cut out a view automations, but that would be updated with any change made to that row not just an approval.

Hope that helps 😊

This is also an article about the record a date action Set the current date with the Record a Date action | Smartsheet Learning Center

Liz_Snavely

Thank you for your guidance. Since multiple approvals will be in route at the same time, how does SmartSheet know which actual cell to update with the automation? For example, if a reviewer approves two different items within a few minutes of each other and there is an automation to update a field based on the approval, how does SmartSheet tie the correct approval to the correct field (ie row vs column)?