Workflow automation alerts that are supposed to include comments are not as of today.

After receiving over a dozen notifications that people are requesting access to a sheet after receiving notifications about a rejection I did a little digging. Comments are used to give the rejection reason so users can correct and re-submit.

As of today, the comments are not being included in the notification. It is not unique to the one sheet either as I replicated the issue with a brand-new workflow on a scratch sheet.

At the moment this is not on the status page, so I wanted to make sure people were aware of the problem in case a short-term work around is needed.

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Accepted answers

Georgie

Hi @S-Jacob,

That’s right - since your workflow triggers when rows are added and when any field changes, this is a change-based workflow, so it will only include comments that are added/changed at the time of the trigger event. Any comments that existed prior to that will not be included.

You could change the workflow to an update or approval request to ensure that previous comments are included - take a look at the following articles for more information on these workflow types:

These workflow types mean that the recipient would have to take action (either approving the request or making a specified change in the sheet via the update request), so you’d have confirmation that they’d received and read the notification.

Hope that helps!

Georgie

All comments

Georgie

Hi @S-Jacob,

More information about what’s included in alert notifications can be found here: Customize your alerts and requests - take a look at the section titled “Comments and attachments in alerts”:

Alert actions in time-based workflows don't include comments and attachments.
Alert actions in change-based workflows only appear when the attachment or comment is modified during the trigger event. The alert doesn't include attachments and comments that existed before the trigger event.
Update request and approval request actions include all new and existing attachments and comments.

If your workflows are set up and should include comments according to the above points, could you provide further information about the affected workflows including screenshots of their full setup?

Thanks,

Georgie

S-Jacob

It has been my understanding that the workflow had been operating as anticipated.

The workflow triggers "When rows are added" and "When Any field changes"

Is this not going to include the comment field when the comment pre-dates the change that triggers the automation?

Georgie

Hi @S-Jacob,

You could change the workflow to an update or approval request to ensure that previous comments are included - take a look at the following articles for more information on these workflow types:

Hope that helps!

Georgie

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