Assignees Receiving Duplicate Email and Request Alerts...why?

Tiffany L

So recently some of our users have began receiving duplicate email and request alerts. If this is an automation programming issue, I'm not understanding what is causing it (I have been using the same format for all of our vendors and workflows without this problem). Is anyone else experiencing this/have any advice on how to avoid it?

Although every vendor is set up using the same criteria, it seems to only be happening to some.

Cory Page

I use alerts all the time and so far I haven't experienced any issues like you mention. It may be a long stretch but are your emails in the "Request an update" being sent to distribution groups? I doubt it but I know some vendors / companies use distribution groups and that could possibly allow the same contact to exist in multiple groups.

Also are you able to verify what emails they are receiving that have been duplicated? Are they 100% identical or is there some differences between them. Making a small change to your automation by adding an extra . or number may help verify that its your automation and not a specific user alert. I try and add the automation name directly to my alert comments as well since it can become daunting managing hundreds of alerts/requests a day.

Sorry that I cant be more helpful,

Tiffany L

@Cory Page, The person who brought it to my attention had me take a look at the most recent few it's happened to. The previous step populates the cell with the individual's name, and it's only a single name in the cell, so it's definitely not going to a group. I had them pull up the email's side-by-side and everything was identical, down to the ID #. I was inclined to think it was something w/their mail filter until they showed me they are receiving duplicate notifications in Smartsheet as well.

It would make more sense to me if it was happening in every grid (we have one grid per vendor), which would indicate an issue w/the automation, but I can't seem to find any rhyme or reason regarding what is triggering the issue.

Cory Page

I am thinking that maybe some of your users have notifications set on for when their names/contacts are selected in the column.. I just set my self up real quick and below is the pop up I received, i suspect if I hit Enable I would probably receive alerts both by me saying enable and if I created an automation through that as well. For the life of me though I can not remember how to double check if this is active or not, I really feel like this happened to me back when I used a lot of contact columns.

I would also recommend taking a look at the activity logs, I think that will also help point out where the second alerts are coming from..