How do I automate a Form?

JRBailey

I have a form in smartsheet that some of our Attendings will be using to fill out required shift information for payment processing. I know that on the base sheet I can set up an automation to request an update weekly which is what I need, but does that apply to the sheet the form info transfers to once submitted? Or will it send the form itself? I know I can copy the link and share the form with the Attendings, but as a step in streamlining the process and saving time, I would like the form portion that they'll be filling out to be automated.

L_123

You are looking for an Update Request, not a form. They are similar, but separate features in smartsheet.

https://help.smartsheet.com/learning-track/smartsheet-intermediate/update-requests

The update request is sent to a user based on criteria you provide on the row level. You can determine what columns to send, and what they update based off of the criteria in the automation tab.

JRBailey

No, that's not what I'm looking for; I need an automated form unfortunately. The reason it needs to be a form is that we have an issue with shift information not being reported correctly so the form allows us to only let them enter required information, but if they can only update by row I'll have to figure out something else.

Genevieve P.

Hey @JRBailey

You can add a Form URL to an automated alert in the Body of the message. This means you could set up a workflow on the sheet to run as a Time Based workflow (e.g. every Monday at a specific time).

You'll need it to be associated with some row, any row in the sheet (I use a top-level "helper" row) and add criteria in the Condition Block to filter and only look at that row. Then in your email, you could use the Message Only option to send the URL to the Form.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Jaz693

Hi @Genevieve P. , I'm looking for a similar solution. Can you expand on your comments?

"You can add a Form URL to an automated alert in the Body of the message. This means you could set up a workflow on the sheet to run as a Time Based workflow (e.g. every Monday at a specific time).

You'll need it to be associated with some row, any row in the sheet (I use a top-level "helper" row) and add criteria in the Condition Block to filter and only look at that row. Then in your email, you could use the Message Only option to send the URL to the Form."

Ive tried this and get an error message that the form URL does not exist on my sheet...

Genevieve P.

Hi @Jaz693

No problem! Here's an image of the example I mean:

The trigger is time based, meaning it's "when a date is reached" and I set a custom recurring time of once a week on Thursdays.

The Condition Block filters my sheet so it only uses ONE row to send the alert. (In my case, the only row in the sheet that has "Top Row" in the Task Name column). This is what prevents multiple emails from being sent out.

I'm sending this as Message Only so none of the data from that top row is actually being sent in the email. I'm using it just for the reminder/text.

Then I have the Form URL copied into the Body of the message being sent. This will send as a clickable URL in the automated email (test it first to ensure your company's email system allows for URLs).

Keep in mind you'll need to create the Form first, in order to have a URL to copy/paste into that message. This would be similar to copy/pasting it into a slack message or email directly, but you're sending it as an automated alert. Does that make sense?

Cheers,

Genevieve

Jaz693

thank you so much for this! One more question. Can I trigger this to happen on an individual row if I have a check box that gets checked? For example, send the form to a specific person if a certain box is manually checked?

Genevieve P.

@Jaz693 Sure! 🙂

In this case you'd adjust the trigger to be when the checkbox is checked.

Jaz693

perfect! Thank you!