Automation emails not sending consistently to some contacts

Question

I'm running into a strange issue with automations and email delivery, and I'm hoping someone can clarify how to fix this.

Setup:

* I have a Smartsheet form with:* A required “Your Email” field (Contact column)
* Several hidden Contact List fields populated automatically

* Automations use “Send to contacts in a cell”

* Submitted workflow* Trigger: When a row is added (form is filled out)
* Action: Send update request to “Your Email" and two of the hidden contact fields

* Approval workflow* Trigger: When rows are added or changed (when "Approver" changes to any value, so when the DataMesh configuration runs to populate Approver/Admin contacts based on another column after form is filled out)
* Action: Send approval request to "Approver" and all three hidden contact fields

What's happening:

* When I test the process using my own email (for submitter, approver, and admin)* I receive all emails (submitter, approver, admin notifications) as expected.
* Other hidden contact fields listed in the same automation do not receive anything

* When a different user (who is one also of the hidden contacts) submits the form and is also assigned as approver/admin:* Their email correctly populates in “Your Email”, "Admin", and "Approver"
* However, no one receives emails in the automations, though they seem to run normally

All contacts are contact columns, and are all in the same organization, so it shouldn't be an issue of Smartsheet emails being blocked. My Automation Permissions are also set to Unrestricted.

I initially wondered if this could be related to duplicate recipients or suppression when the same person fills multiple roles during testing, but that doesn’t seem to fully explain why other contacts in the workflow aren’t receiving emails either.

Any ideas on how to ensure consistent email delivery are appreciated, thanks!

Kshaffer · Answer

@AngB789  I am having issues with automations completely stopping. I would love to connect with you to see if you have any ideas.

ktravnik · Answer

Thank you, this is helpful - where do I find the automation log? I can't see any details of who it actually was sent to I just know that it isn't sending sometimes.

AngB789 · Answer

@Anna Wylly

From some research and personal experience there could be a couple different things happening.

1. Not shared + Not in My Contacts: Emails can fail to deliver if the contact in the cell is not shared to the source sheet and not saved in your personal contacts in Smartsheet. *I have read this is the most common issue with automation emails.

2. DataMesh can cause issues (I learned this the hard way). Are your automations coming from the DataMesh fields. Smartsheet doesn't see those columns as Contacts (even if you have that column as a contact field - sees it as a plain text)

Your DataMesh workflow is updating the Approver and Admin contact fields after the form submission.

In some cases:

The row is added

Automation #1 runs instantly

Approver/Admin fields haven't been populated yet

-so no emails go out to those contacts

You might see "Ran" in the automation log, but with no delivery events.

You can confirm this by looking at:

Automation Log → Delivery Details → Recipients column

3. Role Duplication causes Smartsheet to not send emails.

Smartsheet suppresses notifications when all of the following happen:

the same email is included multiple times in the Recipients field

the "Run As" user is also one of the recipients

or the same person fills multiple roles (submitter, approver, admin)

I am also more than happy to volunteer my time to take a look and troubleshoot. I LOVE a challenge and this is one I have experiences but it's a good way to see how one issue can be caused by many different things. *Learning lesson for me and experience.