Looking for a way to solve an issue of automations turning off because it triggered itself?

I have an automation that sends out a approval request to a user and if that user says no to it, it moves on to a 2nd priority user that also gets a option to approve or deny a request. I have been running into a issue where the automation stops itself because "the workflow triggered itself directly or through anther workflow". However, I cant think of another way to automate this to allow for different users to receive approval request based on if the previous person said no or not.

A more detailed version of how the automation works is as follows.
A customer fills in a form that gives them the option to choose 5 speakers in order of which ones they would rather have speak at a engagement. Then, the automation sends out approval request to the first speaker. If the first speaker says no, we copy that row to another sheet where the id number that is associated with that speaker is cleared and a formula helps identify the next speaker that should be contacted. then after the cell is cleared, the row is copied back to the original sheet where the email for the second speaker is sent out. The problem starts to occur when we have multiple submissions and will sometimes just stop randomly.

Not sure where to go from here. i have tried to combine some workflows to have it not be an infinite loop, but it still occurs

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Julie Fortney

Hi Brendon,

I've had this issue in the past as well, when it comes to copying rows to another sheet, and then back to the original sheet.

Without seeing your solution, I'm wondering if you could just keep the row on the same sheet? I have multi-level approvals on several sheets, and they work well.

Feel free to provide a screenshot of your sheet with any confidential data blocked out, if you want to troubleshoot further.

BrendonL

Hi,

This is the important part of the sheet

What happens in this is that when a requester submits a form the sheet will take the first talk id and grab all of the info. then it will email the speaker and see if they are willing to speak. if not the automation moves the row to another sheet where it deletes the talk id most recently used, then copy the row back to start the automation again to email the next speaker.

the automation looks like this. The parts above this are just emails that are sent out.

Julie Fortney

Here's what I would do instead:

Have an approval column for each Talk ID. If Talk ID 1 rejects the gig, it will trigger the Talk ID 2 approval request to the next speaker. You could adjust your formulas for other columns to pull info for that Talk ID based on where you are in the approvals for each ID.

BrendonL

I was just getting to working out the above idea, but I now have an issue where I have too many actions in 1 workflow,

Thanks for the idea, maybe there is a way for me to split this up but going to have to poke around for a little to see what i can split up.

Julie Fortney

Wow - I've never reached the "Too many actions" alert, so that's an accomplishment. :)

I typically break up approval workflows into multiple workflows to make it easier to follow. For instance, for your Talk ID2 approval workflow, the trigger could be when the Talk ID 1 approval column changed to "rejected."

BrendonL

So I have more automations that Trigger off of the date new requests are sent out. IE if talk 1 person says no, then a date is updated to today. Then I have 2 other columns( 3 days after and 7 days after) that would trigger when the current date reaches those dates. I would assume that I would need to do the same as above to each of those columns right? when these automations run, it should send a follow up to the talker as a reminder that they have been requested and that If not answered by a certain time they will be passed.

Julie Fortney

I'm not sure if you were envisioning having to set up additional date columns for each person, but I don't think you would. If Person 1 says no, the workflow for Person 2 could trigger, and you could reset the first date column to the current date. Then when 3 days after is the current date, the automation will look to see who you're still waiting for a response from, and send the followup to that person.

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