Automation works when triggering manually but not if I leave it (although it says it runs)

Clinton W

Hi all, i have this set up to run every day at a certain time. When i check it after the time it's set I can see the automation has been triggered but it does not do what is intended which is send out and email and then change a cell value to checked. One of the conditions for this is after 3 days. However, if i run this automation manually it works like a charm immediately.

What's even more frustrating is that i have an exact duplicate of this set up for 8 days later and this one actually does work without manual triggering.

Could anyone point to potential reasons why the exact same automation is working for one set of variable on the 8 days but not on the first automation of 3 days? What should i be looking for?

The sheet in question is very active long before the automations are set to trigger.

The formula for Days Since Completed is (in case relevant):

=IFERROR(NETWORKDAYS([Date Completed]@row, TODAY()) - 1, "")

I'll put the 3 day and the 8 day automations below.

MarceHolzhauzen

Hi @Clinton W

The situation you're describing sounds like the criteria for the above automation is not being met.

Could you share a screenshot of your sheet that shows the columns you're running the automation for?

Clinton W

Hi Marce, thanks for jumping in. I would normally tend to agree with you. But forcing the automation to run, the steps work perfectly. So i don't know why that would be the case but just letting it run doesn't. Here are the columns for some of the recent rows.

Let me know what you think.

Clinton W

Hi Marce and anyone else that can help,

So weird. Today the 3 day automation completed the steps by itself but the 8 day automation didn't (this one i needed to manually run from the automation menu and it worked).

Any ideas on why it works sometimes but mostly doesn't? However, it all works beautifully when i hit "run now" on any of the automations.

Addition - Looking into other people who have had similiar problems it seems to all stem from the trigger. Others have had the issue when using the When a date is reached trigger and can all run manually but it won't trigger by itself which is so strange because timezone is set right and it even states "Last ran…" that matches up quite closely to the time (shortly after) but never executes by itself.

Thanks

DKazatsky2

Hi @Clinton W,

Just food for thought, it may not be the trigger that is the issue, but rather the formula for populating "Days Since Completed".

There is an issue where the TODAY() function doesn't always populate as expected, which could be causing these issues. One workaround is to have a "Today" field somewhere in the sheet that is updated daily by an automation, much like the automations you are currently using. Then, your formula for populating "Days Since Completed" would reference this field instead of using TODAY() in it's calculation.

Hope this helps,

Dave

Clinton W

Hi Dave, I think your answer is the most likely and logical.

So i nail this (as i'm a quick learner but no smartsheet guru), could i ask exactly what you put as the automation for the Today field?

Thanks for chiming in!

Georgie

Hi @Clinton W,

Check out this help article for several options to Automatically update the TODAY function in formulas - all the steps to create an automated workflow to do this are listed here under Option 1. 

Hope that helps!

Georgie