Automating a "change cell value" - why are some columns available but not others?

melissa.g.mendez

I've got a handful of sheets listing upcoming meetings for the year; different sheets because different folks have line of sight to the various meeting series.

We each work from a report that pulls from all these sheets to show each of us what's in progress now, based on assigned responsibilities.

On my sheets listing meetings, I'd like to trigger two automations: Two weeks before a date is reached, I want the status column for that row to flip to "In Progress." This I've automated. I'd also like for my name to appear in a "Responsible" column. "In Progress" and "Responsible" are the filters that allow the now-approaching meeting to incorporate into the report my team all use to collate our open actions.

The "In Progress" column is a dropdown; the Responsible column is a contact list with a limited number of contacts.

Is is possible to automate a solution to having a contact name appear into a column, triggered by an approaching date? I could convert that contacts to a dropdown but am concerned that will make other dependencies awkward. Are there other options?

Linda Manduchova

Hi @melissa.g.mendez

Your automation looks good for your 1st criterion (for the status column to flip to "In Progress" value 2 weeks before a date is reached). For your 2nd criterion, you will need to create another automation that will look almost the same as your first one with a difference that instead of selecting "Change cell value" as an action, you will need to select "Assign People" action. Then, you can select to assign people (in this case yourself) in your "Responsible" column.

Linda