Getting update requests only when OTHERS add comments

Julia C Peterson

Hello,

A process I am working on involves using comments as and update requests as a discussion tool. The people who will be using it won't be logging into smartsheet, they will be doing everything via update requests. I have it set up so that whenever a comment is added, everyone gets an update request. Comments are added via the update request forms.

The issue I'm running into is that if Employee A makes a comment on an update request, Employee A gets both an Update Confirmation email and an Update Request email triggered by the new comment Employee A made. I'm fine with the Update confirmation email but I don't want people to receive update requests when they themselves are the ones who added the new comment.

I tried adding a system "Modified By" column and adding that as a condition to the update requests (i.e. Approver 1 Update Request has a condition that "Modified By" does not equal Approver 1" but that didn't work. It seems that the new comment triggers the update request before the modified by column changes.

Any ideas?

Paul Newcome

Have each person log into their personal settings and uncheck the box that sends alerts based on changes they made.

Julia C Peterson

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the suggestion, I had high hopes for that but it didn't work unfortunately. Even when I unchecked that box I still get the update request triggered by my own comments. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I'm commenting via an Update Request instead of commenting directly on the sheet. Or, maybe that check box really only applies to "Sheet Change" notifications and not to Update Request notifications.

I figured out a way to fix the issue using zapier. I basically added two columns to the sheet that are filled out by zapier whenever a comment is added. One is "Last Commenter Name" and one is "Last Comment ID". So the update requests are now triggered whenever "Last Comment ID" changes value and it is conditional so that no request is sent if "Last Commenter Name" is equal to the approver.

I do wish there was a way in smartsheet to turn off all notifications, update requests, approval requests, etc. when the trigger was done by myself either on the sheet, in an update request, approval request, etc. Oh well. Thanks anyways.

Paul Newcome

I would have thought that would work. Hmm...

At least you were able to find a working solution. I am going to have to dig into this myself a little bit because now I am curious.