Automation Not Working – Status Not Updating Automatically

P.mengade

Hi Smartsheet Community,

I’ve set up an automation rule in my Smartsheet to automatically change the "Status" column to "New" when a new request is submitted via a form. I followed these steps:

1. Created a "Status" column.
2. Set up an automation rule triggered by "When a row is added."
3. Chose the action "Change cell value" to update the "Status" column to "New."

However, after submitting a new request, the "Status" doesn’t update automatically. I still have to go in manually and change the status to "New."

Has anyone experienced this issue before? Am I missing a step or setting that might be causing this automation to not work?

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Paul Newcome

My suggestion would be a hidden field on the form with the default value set to "New" instead of the automation.

Michelle Choate 2

Is this information coming in via form or by people adding rows?

If it is by people adding rows, you might try deleting all the blank rows you can see, saving, then exiting the sheet. Sometimes those rows are considered "existing rows" if you have any column formulas, etc.

If they are coming in via form, I would set up a hidden question on the form, with the status as the default value.

P.mengade

Thank You so much! the requests are submitted via a Form.

Paul Newcome

My suggestion would be a hidden field on the form with the default value set to "New" instead of the automation.

P.mengade

Thank you so much! This worked, and I was able to resolve the issue. @Michelle Choate 2 @Paul Newcome

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️

P.mengade

@Paul Newcome Apologies for reaching out again, but I’m facing another issue with the form I created to gather information from students requesting IT equipment. The form includes a status column with three options: "New Request," "In Progress," and "Resolved."

The challenge is that whenever I update the status to "In Progress," it reverts back to "New" after a few minutes. I was wondering if you've encountered this issue before, or if you have any ideas on what might be causing it?

I’d really appreciate any insights you can share!

Thanks again for your help!

Paul Newcome

I would start with double checking your automations to make sure you don't have anything in place there.