Late task notification

Dan Engerer

Hi. I'm trying to send notifications to users who have overdue tasks, i.e. tasks that are not complete and the due date is now in the past. 



I'm seriously shocked to find that this functionality doesn't even exist as a pre-made notification already...? Am I the only person who wants to notify staff when they're late?



The only "solutions" I find are tacky workarounds requiring a special column and formula be added in order to trigger a "change" in the spreadsheet... please tell me there is a better way. Now I have to go in and modify 20+ spreadsheets with extra columns, formulas, and convoluted logic just to notify my team when a task is late. If I wanted excel I would have just bought excel. But this really really reminds me of excel. 



Please help me figure this out. Thanks.  

Paul Newcome

Go to your Alerts & Actions. Select "Create a Notification". You can add your conditions there to include if "Complete?" is "not checked" (or "Status" "is not" "Complete") and if the "Due Date" is "in the past" then have it sent to whoever the task is assigned to. See Picture below.

Dan Engerer

I was told by smartsheet staff that this will not work unless the sheet has been updated. That is, I can not just set up the sheet, not touch ever again, and have the notifications continually send out to team members whenever they have an overdue, unfinished task. 



With your recommended action, Smartsheet will not act "automatically", it would still require a row update in order to trigger this notification. Am I right? Now I'm confused. 

Smartsheet technical support: 



"As we discussed, at this time, Smartsheet does not support this functionality to have conditional reminders;" 



 

Paul Newcome

I have no idea why they would say that. They even have you set up a conditional notification in the practical portion of the certification.

All that I suggest is also changing the frequency as shown below. It's actually very simple. Create the notification to go to the "Assigned To" contact as posted above. then go into the Delivery Settings. 

I use it regularly...

Paul Newcome

You can even send regular update requests as opposed to a notification. Notifications just say "You're past due."

The update request says "You're past due. Now go in and fix it."

Dan Engerer

Hmm. I will try your suggestion right now. I hope it works. Thank you. 

Paul Newcome

No worries. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Dan Engerer

Hi there. It did not work for me - I made an hourly notification and created a new sample task which was already in the past. I did not get any notifications. 

Dan Engerer

Someone please help... this is so stupid and is driving me crazy 

Andrée Starå

Hi Dan,

Have you received a notification now?

Best,

Andrée Starå - Workflow Consultant @ Get Done

Paul Newcome

Ugh. This is really weird. It works just fine for me. Even I'm starting to get frustrated. Lol. Ok. One more test...

Set up your notification for "Immediately", set up a test date for TOMORROW. Also go into your personal settings, go to the notifications section, and turn on the one that alerts you about your own changes.

If you don't get a notification tomorrow I would suggest contacting Smartsheet because at the very least you should be getting notifications through this mess. I know they said they can't send the "Conditional Notifications", but you have everything set up right. Include the screenshots and everything.

Ryan Murphy

Did you ever find an answer to this?  I'm looking for the same and having to insert a cryptic formula doesn't make sense.  

Paul Newcome

You shouldn't have to enter any formulas. This particular thread seems to be an isolated issue as I have set up numerous notifications based off of my above posts and have helped others in the office do the same with successful testing. (Just this morning actually)

 

Try setting up your notifications as above and see if that works for you. It should.

Ryan Murphy

I have it set to notification if row is updated or added.  I have a due date and if compliance is not met I want an email sent.  The notification rule says "when a row is added, updated or deleted".  If a row is left unchanged and the due date is within the notification parameters will the notification be sent without a change to the row?

Paul Newcome

It should. I just set something up very similar to that a few hours ago.

Kate Hasse

I would like to echo Dan's request. I was very excited when I heard that automated update requests were now an active capability. However, my main function for automated update requests would be exactly what Dan is wanting - when a due date passes and nothing has been done to the row in question, so precisely the opposite of the available triggers. Currently the triggers to send an automated update request include "when a row is added or changed." I would like it to simply be triggered by the due date passing the status is not complete. These are currently options for the conditions of the rule, but not the trigger. Dan is correct in saying that you do not receive a notification when the due date passes and nothing has changed in the row. 

I know I would use this feature if this was an option. The current triggers actually confuse me a bit. The triggers need to be more robust and the triggers should have passive options - meaning the trigger doesn't require a change to the row to send an update request.