Automation workflow not triggered when changing columns in sheet

JBG

Dear smart Smartsheet users, I have a question regarding an automation flow that does not work.

 I have a sheet called “submit timesheets” containing the following 4 columns. ID, Employee email, Calendar Year, Month. I created a form where users could indicate which timesheet they would like to submit.

 I also have a sheet called “timesheet details”. The important columns are “status” and “submit”. The submit column is a checkbox.

 When the timesheets for a month are created the value of the status column is set to “created”. A user will then validate the records in the sheet and make the necessary adjustments. Once they are ready they will then submit the timesheet via the “submit timesheet” form.

 Once the submission is performed the “Submit” column in “timesheet details” sheet will become TRUE if the record in the sheet has a “created” status, and the employee email, calendar year, and month are equal to the last record in the “submit timesheet” sheet. This all works great, no problem thanks to other articles I read on the forum.

 I then have an automation workflow that should update the status field in the “timesheet details” sheet to “checked” when the “submit” column is updated to TRUE. For some reason, this update does not happen.

I do understand that once the status is changed to "checked", the "submit" field becomes false again. That is what i would like to achieve.

JBG

This is answered via this link

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/109955/change-cell-automation-not-working#:~:text=Automations%20cannot%20be%20triggered%20to,currently%20have%20for%20your%20trigger.

The main comment is:

Automations cannot be triggered to run immediately based on a cell containing a cross sheet reference or cell link.

JBG

This is answered via this link

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/109955/change-cell-automation-not-working#:~:text=Automations%20cannot%20be%20triggered%20to,currently%20have%20for%20your%20trigger.

The main comment is:

Automations cannot be triggered to run immediately based on a cell containing a cross sheet reference or cell link.

Genevieve P.

Hey @JBG

I'm glad you found the answer to your question! You can still achieve your goal, but you'd need to run it on a Date-Based workflow instead of based on a change. For example, you could set the workflow to run at the end of every day and update the Status at the end of the day with the Condition Block of the workflow set to look at your Submit column.

Or, if you don't need to make any manual changes to that Status column we could use a simple column formula:

=IF(Submit@row = 1, 1, 0)

Cheers,

Genevieve

JBG

Hi Genevieve P.

Thanks, that is what I did eventually. Created a couple of workflows to run every 2 hours daily.

Regards,

Hannes