Having Trouble with Approval Request Workflow being re-triggered by an automation

Andrea_Thompson

Hello! In the sheet we are using there is a box to check that will send out an approval request to someone. When the box is checked, it changes that approval column to "Submitted." And then that same column will change to "Approved" once they complete the approval request. The problem we are having is that the process will be completed through "Approved" but then some time later an mystery automation runs that will change the approval column from "Approved" back to "Submitted." This then leads to people receiving outdated approval requests again. We spoke with Smartsheet support when this happened randomly a couple of months ago - we ended up duplicating the automation and removing the old one in case there was a glitch, and adding in conditions. But now the workflow was triggered again randomly. I have included screenshots of what I am seeing on the sheet and the workflow:

Cell history for the Approval status column:

Cell history for the checked box column:

Workflow set up:

(we added the 2 conditions here when this glitch happened randomly a couple of months ago after talking to support about seeing if adding conditions would help)

Andrea_Thompson

Hi @bisaacs ,

Thank you for the response. I don't think that will work because the re-triggering is being caused by that column changing to "Submitted" by an unknown automation. I received the following response from Smartsheet Support:

"I tested the behavior here on my end and I can confirm that when a Sheet uses a single Approval Column with multiple Approval Request Workflows, the Sheet will automatically send out another Approval Request."

I have a few workflows created that use the same Approval Request column, therefore I am going to try to re-create a workflow that combines the actions/conditions of all the workflows. Hopefully, this will prevent this glitch from occurring.

bisaacs

Hey @Andrea_Thompson ,

I would maybe add another condition on the condition block that checks if the status is not "Approved". That should stop it from sending out another request.

Otherwise, are there any other workflows you have that are triggered if a field changes?

Andrea_Thompson

Hi @bisaacs ,

Thank you for the response. I don't think that will work because the re-triggering is being caused by that column changing to "Submitted" by an unknown automation. I received the following response from Smartsheet Support:

"I tested the behavior here on my end and I can confirm that when a Sheet uses a single Approval Column with multiple Approval Request Workflows, the Sheet will automatically send out another Approval Request."

I have a few workflows created that use the same Approval Request column, therefore I am going to try to re-create a workflow that combines the actions/conditions of all the workflows. Hopefully, this will prevent this glitch from occurring.