I am stumped need help please

Mblack29

Hello I am still learning with smart sheets and I just cant seem to figure this problem out. So i have made a simple to do list with reports and such to a dash board now one sheet is designated as new hire. This has a form that we put in such as name full or part timer and department. I have bin doing it by hand and would like to find a way to automate this portion if possible. So say the new hire is in IT we have specific task we need them to finish for training. I was manual making the list each time a new person comes in. Is there a way to either copy from a master file or just create the task in the to do sheet after someone finishes filling the forum?

Brent C. Wilson

Yes, you can automate the process of adding tasks for new hires based on their department in Smartsheet using automated workflows. Here's how you can set this up:

Step 1: Create a Master Task Template

1. Create a separate sheet called "Master Task Template" that contains all the specific tasks for each department (e.g., IT, HR, etc.). You can have columns for:
   • Task Name
   • Department
   • Due Date
   • Assigned To (optional)
   • Status (optional)

Step 2: Set Up a Workflow in the New Hire Sheet

1. Go to your New Hire sheet (where you capture the form responses for new hires).
2. Click on Automation > Create a Workflow.
3. Set up a trigger based on the new hire form submission. The trigger can be something like:
   • When a row is added (this would happen when the form is submitted).

Step 3: Add Conditions to Filter by Department

1. In the workflow, add a condition to check the new hire's department:
   • Condition: If the department column is "IT" (or any other department).

Step 4: Use the "Copy Row" Action from the Master Task Template

1. As an action, choose Copy Row.
2. Set it to copy the rows from the Master Task Template to your To-Do List Sheet.
3. Ensure that the rows that are copied match the tasks for the specific department (e.g., tasks for "IT" should only be copied when the new hire is from the IT department).

Step 5: Finalize the Workflow

1. You can optionally add alerts or notifications to team members after the tasks are created.
2. Save the workflow.

This setup will automatically add the appropriate tasks to your to-do list whenever a new hire is added via the form, based on their department. You can scale this to multiple departments by adding more conditions to the workflow.

Mblack29

That helps a lot how ever I cant seem to get the copy row action to copy anything aside for the row added into new hire/ I seem to be missing a way to narrow down what is transferred and from what to what.

Georgie

Hi @Mblack29,

It sounds like you’d like your automation to run on all existing rows in your New Hire sheet rather than only newly added rows. To do that, you could change the trigger to “When a date is reached” and then set the custom recurrence as frequently as you’d like by clicking Run Once > Custom and then setting your options as desired. 

You can then click the + icon above your Conditions block and select Add a condition path so that you can define where new rows are copied to when the Department is a different value, and you can add a condition path for each possible value in the Departments column.  

As an example, my workflow below will check daily for rows with different statuses, and move them to the specified sheet for each different status:

You could set your workflow up similarly, but with your conditions based on values in the Department column instead.

Check out these help articles for more information:

• Work with the copy rows action
• Trigger blocks: When your workflow is executed
  

Hope that helps, but let us know if you have more questions!
Georgie