Exclude comment notifications: why does modified by field show discussion.system@smartsheet.com?

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Smartsheet Workflow - Notifications by user who made the update?.

RonTalarico

Hello, I am trying this same method shown above with the Modified By. For some reason when trying to make a change to a comment field the modified by is noted as discussion.system@smartsheet.com and not my name. Is there a particular reason this may be the case?

Georgie

Hi @RonTalarico,

I can confirm that the Modified By column showing discussion.system@smartsheet.com when the Latest Comment column is updated is expected behaviour. When changes are made by users in other columns, the Modified By column will show that user’s email address.

If you’d like to alert yourself/other users when the Latest Comment column is updated, you can include the discussion.system@smartsheet.com email as part of your workflow. For example, you can set the trigger block up to say “when Modified By changes to discussion.system@smartsheet.com” if you’d like to be alerted only for changes to the Latest Comment column, as seen below:

Alternatively, you can set it to “when Modified By changes to Any Value” if you’d like alerts for any time the row is changed.

Hope that helps!

Georgie

RonTalarico

Thanks for the reply. I am trying to stop notifications going to users that add the comment. Right now we have notifications going out that says when latest comment changes to any value then send a notification. The latest comment can be added by the owning user to that line (a project in our case) or the end user. Do you have ideas on how I can setup a condition where the person entering the latest comment doesn't get the notification that latest comment was changed?

Georgie

Hi @RonTalarico,

You could do that using a helper column with a column formula, then using a condition in your workflow.

I set up a test sheet and confirmed this works as expected - here are the steps I took:

1. Add a new checkbox column (I named mine “Latest comment by assigned to user?”).
2. In the new column, use the following formula, and convert it to a column formula:
   1. =IF(CONTAINS([Assigned To]@row, [Latest comment]@row), 1, 0).
   2. Note, you’ll need to adjust this formula to use the exact names of the columns in your sheet.
3. The above formula will check the box when the latest comment is by the user that the row is assigned to, since the name of the user is included with the latest comment. Your sheet should then look something like this - you can see that the checkbox is checked where the names match in the Assigned To and Latest comment columns:
4. Next, edit your workflow to add a condition block that says “Where ‘Latest comment by assigned to user?’ is not checked” - you can see my example below:

Users should then receive notifications only when the latest comment is by a user that isn't the user assigned to the row.

Hope that works for you - let me know if you have more questions on this!

Georgie

RonTalarico

I see now, I think this will work. I just need to setup a second column but change the argument to requestor instead of assigned-to and then have a second condition there. I was just trying to minimize additional columns in the grid view. I know I can hide them but then they still show up in the card view. Not a super big deal for now. I will test this out. Thanks for the prompt replies.