Using info from "request an update" later in the same workflow

Danny T.

Hello. I am having some trouble with a workflow.

The trigger is a new sheet row and the first block is an approval. This part works fine.

If approved, the following block is an update request which asks someone for an email address.

That email address is inserted into a contact list column on the sheet. This part works fine, as well. I can collect and store the email address.

However, after the "request an update" block where the email is collected, I need to send an approval request to the email address that was just collected. That part is not working.

The whole workflow stops after the email address is collected.

amhba

The issue is that when an Update is sent, any action that follows in the same Automation chain happens at the same time the update notification is being sent out, so you are trying to send to an email address that doesn't exist yet because the update has not been completed, so the email address has not yet been added to the sheet when you kick off the second approval.

The simplest approach would be to move the second approval to a new Automation altogether: Trigger: When a row is changed and the email address field changes to any value, send the approval request to that email address. That may stall on bad or empty email addresses, though.

If it stalls, then I would recommend making that new automation like this: 1) add a new checkbox field under the email address and call it something like "Add email" and 2) in the new Automation, the trigger should be when a row is changed, and "Add email" is checked, check this condition: if "email address" is not blank (I don't think "not blank" is an option for an initial trigger), then route an approval request to the email address.

Curious to see how that works out for you.