Move Row Automation "same name as a system column" Error

Greg Ness

I have two Move Row automations that have triggered the same error (see below) in the last few days. In each case, all of the destination sheet columns are text, date or dropdown. Proofing is not enabled on either of the source sheets.

Here is the outcome of my troubleshooting for the Sample Archive automation below. I compared the columns between my current destination sheet and those on a backup made back when the automation was working. The columns between the current and backup match exactly. My Activity log shows the last valid automation to have occurred on 5/8 at 8:14am. It was disabled on 5/9 at 8:21pm. In between, I do not think there was anything unusual (Sheet Views, a few Manual Row moves, two Sharing setting changes). Immediately before the automation was disabled, three cells were changed via a DataMesh. The DataMesh that was involved is working properly.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Mary_A

@Greg Ness

If a system column in one sheet has the same name as a non-system column in the other sheet, the workflow will be disabled and you’ll receive the following message:

Rows can’t be moved to the destination sheet because a system column has the same name as a column on the source sheet.

So, a primary column, created by, etc. are all the system column types. Those are what you need to check;

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2480261-move-rows-action

For example, someone might have used Created By in source and renamed the Created By in the destination to Added.

Mary_A

@Greg Ness

If a system column in one sheet has the same name as a non-system column in the other sheet, the workflow will be disabled and you’ll receive the following message:

Rows can’t be moved to the destination sheet because a system column has the same name as a column on the source sheet.

So, a primary column, created by, etc. are all the system column types. Those are what you need to check;

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2480261-move-rows-action

For example, someone might have used Created By in source and renamed the Created By in the destination to Added.

Greg Ness

Thanks, Mary. The link you shared got me on a good track. It appears that the issue on one of my two automation errors was that an Auto Number column in the source sheet was not set up as an Auto Number column in the destination. I changed that destination column to Auto Number type and the workflow was re-enabled. One down, one remaining.

The other automation involves a fairly large sheet and the same sort of disconnect is not immediately obvious. I will spend some time walking through the second sheet and see if I can pin it down.

Greg Ness

I found no other system columns on either end of my second automation fail, but I did identify two dropdown columns where the options differed slightly between source and destination. I cleaned those up and returned to check the automation. Simply put, I was able to re-enable the automation and the workflow is functioning properly now.

Cindy Strahler

Thanks for everyone that answered this in 2020. It helped solve my problem in 2021.