Save Automations as Draft

vdemattei

There's been a few times now that I started creating an automation and it wasn't able to find the thing I wanted to reference or there was a minor issue with a reference and I had to completely discard the automation, go make my change, and then go and start creating the automation from scratch again. There is currently a way to make automations deactivated. Can we also have "draft" automations? We have draft posts here in the community area.

Mattisphere

@vdemattei You can essentially do this by making sure your trigger isn't going to go off immediately, save the workflow, then go to the triple dot menu on the workflow and deactivate it. You can continue editing it then until you are ready to activate it. They could add a "save as draft button" and the functionality I would recommend developing is to just save it in a "Deactivated" status rather than engineering a new "Draft" status and way to "publish" the draft.

vdemattei

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/398972#Comment_398972

You are correct, if the automation is complete and working properly. Drafts would be for incomplete or erroneous automations that need work outside the automation page to get working properly. I think it would still be helpful to distinguish draft (incomplete) automations from deactivated automations that can easily be re-activated because they are already complete and working they way they should.

Mattisphere

@vdemattei I like the idea and hope it's implemented. Just saving workflows with [DRAFT] in the title and deactivated, while it is helpful, isn't the most elegant solution, especially because it can still lead to unintended triggers in the process since there is no way to save it initially in the deactivated status.

Automationer

Often, I start creating a workflow and need to think about things again when I get into the work. I've conditioned myself to take a screenshot of anything I've built so far so I can replicate it later. It would save a lot of time if I could save the draft in the Automation menu (labelled Draft or something when you access the general menu).