Creating an automation to notify someone of how many days an apartment is vacant

Windy W.

Hello!

I have a sheet that identifies how long apartments have been empty in our building, based upon when keys were returned to our office. I've been tasked with sending out a once-a-week notification to our ED that will let her know what apartments are currently vacant and for how long they've been vacant. I have two parent/child categories that include "Vacant/Available" and "Renovation," where child categories of empty apartments would reside. Sometimes an empty apartment is being renovated for "pre-sale," but is still considered "vacant." The only constant between the two parent categories is that we indicate "N/A" if the child apartment is vacant with no reservation (see screen cap).

The automation I've attempted (but is NOT working), is to set the trigger for Mondays Where anything under the "Apartments" column has the letters "N/A" in it (see screen cap). Can someone please suggest something that might work for my needs? Was I even close?

Thank you in advance for your help.

dmillerw

If I understand you correctly, you're just looking to alert if a row in the "Apartments" column contains "N/A"?

You can use "contains" as a conditional for your workflow, see below.

MariaCurtis

Hi! I actually don't recommend using an automation for this, because then she will receive a single email for every vacancy. It might be better to create a report that just shows the specific details she's looking for (the vacant apartments and how long they've been vacant for). You can then schedule that report to go to her weekly! Check out the Help article below on scheduling a report!

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/516096-sharing-sending-reports#:~:text=In%20the%20window%2C%20next%20to,Click%20OK.

dmillerw

If I understand you correctly, you're just looking to alert if a row in the "Apartments" column contains "N/A"?

You can use "contains" as a conditional for your workflow, see below.

MariaCurtis

Hi! I actually don't recommend using an automation for this, because then she will receive a single email for every vacancy. It might be better to create a report that just shows the specific details she's looking for (the vacant apartments and how long they've been vacant for). You can then schedule that report to go to her weekly! Check out the Help article below on scheduling a report!

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/516096-sharing-sending-reports#:~:text=In%20the%20window%2C%20next%20to,Click%20OK.

Windy W.

I'm happy to report that BOTH ways work. Thank you @dmillerw and @MariaCurtis. I will add that when I use the automation function on the sheet (changing the condition from "is equal to" to "contains)," it did NOT generate multiple emails (it came as a single email). That said, this was the first opportunity for me to utilize making a report through Smartsheet. So, I appreciate the tip. Thank you to you both!

MariaCurtis

Oh that's awesome @Windy W. ! Glad to hear both ways work! That was my mistake on saying it would generate multiple emails. I was thinking about a case we have were notifications go out every time something turns yellow. That's different from your situation!