How to create a formula that will send notifications to specific users

sp99

Hello,

Im trying to create a column formula that when a user selects a certain field, the responses will automatically go to a specific person/responder and will notify them of a task that's awaiting their approval.

For example: someone wants more information about a specific oncology drug, (the "therapeutic area" column). When they select "oncology", only the oncology specialist/"TA owner", should receive and respond to that information that was filled out.

How do I write a formula that makes these selections automated?

juliesilverio

Hi sp99,

I would approach this using automations instead of a formula.

What I would recommend is creating an automation to assign a TA Owner when the Therapeutic Area cell is updated to oncology, etc. Then you can create an automation to alert the assigned TA Owner.

Below is a snapshot of a quick example I put together for you to model after:

Step 1: TA Owner Assignment - Here is where we can tell Smartsheet to assign a TA Owner by Therapeutic Area. You can set up an automation like this for all of your Therapeutic Areas individually. This will also make it easy to update in the future should your assignments need to change.

Step 2: TA Owner Notification - Here is where you can customize the message to your TA Owner. I typically include a link to the sheet in the message, relevant columns from the sheet, and whatever instructions for their required action. You only need to set one of these automations up as it will span all Therapeutic Areas.

You can also explore setting up an update request in lieu of the alert if you need to capture additional information from your TA Owners in your Smartsheet. You can add a column in your sheet titled "TA Owner Response" that is a checkbox column for them to check off if they have completed their response or a text column for them to provide more detail. Instructions on that process are here: https://help.smartsheet.com/learning-track/smartsheet-intermediate/update-requests

Hope that helps!