Automation isn't updating my email subject line as I had entered - what am I doing wrong?

Shannon Murphy

Hello,

I am having issues with automations not updating to show the custom subject line I entered for emails. I am not sure what I am doing incorrectly. Can someone please review the screenshots below and advise me? Thank you!

Here is what I expected to see in my email:

Here is what I got:

Andrée Starå

Hi @Shannon Murphy

Is it set to run workflow when triggered?

Can you maybe share some screenshots of the sheets columns? (Delete/replace any confidential/sensitive information before sharing) That would make it easier to help. (share too, andree@getdone.se)

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Genevieve P.

Hi @Shannon Murphy

It looks like the email screen capture is actually referencing a row-level Reminder, not the Alert in your workflow. Do you have a different email that doesn't have "Reminder" in the subject line?

Shannon Murphy

Hi @Andrée Starå and @Genevieve P ,

Here is a snapshot of the columns in the report:

I did not set up any reminders (that I remember doing) - and I don't have any emails that don't have "reminder" in the subject line. I don't show any of the "bell" reminder symbols for any of these rows.

This same thing is happening on another smartsheet I created.

Shannon

Shannon Murphy

@Andrée Starå , here is the trigger:

@Genevieve P - could the reminder happen if I set the report up to send to me another hour, but with the same data? I keep making changes to try to fix things (prior to posting on here), so could that cause it to show as a reminder instead of as the actual email?

Genevieve P.

Hi @Shannon Murphy

Is it possible that there are multiple workflows set up on the same sheet?

I'm wondering because the subject line is very different between the alert and what's actually in the email. I've tested with a time-based trigger and a change-based trigger and neither will put the note of "Reminder" out in front of the subject line. It also wouldn't adjust your Agenda to say "Agenda/Minutes" instead of "Agenda for {{date}}".

This indicates to me that there's a different workflow on your sheet where the subject says "Reminder: Health Governance Agenda/Minutes".

That said, you should be getting two emails then: one for the workflow with the subject line above, and one for the current workflow you have pictured. Is it possible that some of your alerts are being filtered into your junk folder?

If there are no other workflows on this sheet, you may want to reach out to Smartsheet Support, providing them with your sheet name and a link to this thread so they can see your screen captures above.

Shannon Murphy

Hi @Genevieve P , the name of the Smartsheet file is "Health Governance Agenda/Minutes" so the email with the "Reminder" is just giving me the file name in the subject line.

There are multiple workflows, but each has it's own unique subject line, none of which are what I am seeing.

I tried to complete a Smartsheet support email and it wouldn't go through yesterday. I will try again today.

Thanks for the help attempts!

Shannon

Andrée Starå

@Shannon Murphy

Did you get it working?

BB2791

Hi @Andrée Starå ,

I know this is an old post but I'm having a very similar issue so thought I should add to this thread instead of starting a new one. I'm finding that my subject for alert emails are defaulting to "Reminder: Sheet Title" when I've tried customizing the subject to "A PO payment is due soon"

I do have multiple automated alerts on this sheet but I'm not clear as to why that would affect the subject. Do you have any ideas as to how I can try to fix this?

Genevieve P.

Hi @BB2791

Is it possible that the Reminder is coming from a row-level reminder versus one of your automated workflows? See: Remind yourself about specific tasks

BB2791

Hi @Genevieve P.

Thanks for getting back to me. No, this sheet doesn't have any alerts set up at the row level.

Genevieve P.

Hi @BB2791

Thanks for checking!

Since this discussion, I learned that placeholders, {{these}}, won’t apply to the subject of time-based Alert someone actions.

Are you using a {{placeholder}} in the subject of your Alert? And if so, are you triggering the alert based on a date or time?

Here's more information: Customize the content of your alerts and requests

Cheers,

Genevieve

BB2791

Hi @Genevieve P.

Thanks for looking into this further. My subject line for the alert is: "A Payment is Due Soon" the body of the email has two placeholders:

Hello,

PO {{PO#}} has a payment that will be due in a week. Request an invoice from {{Vendor}} or issue payment and update the corresponding "Paid" checkbox and date.

The body of the alert email is working perfectly. I just can't get the subject to align with what I inputted.

What I inputted:

What the email alert looks like:

Genevieve P.

Hi @BB2791

Ah, yes, thank you this helps!

The reason you're seeing a generic title is because you're triggering the action by a Date / Time (versus an action in a sheet), you're using the setting "Links to Sheet and Specific Fields", the body of the message contains a {{placeholder}}, and multiple rows are being included in one alert. The combination of these four elements is what's adjusting your Subject.

Try any of the following to get your custom subject back:

• Remove the {{Placeholder}} and include it as one of the Fields only
• Don't include any Fields or the Sheet Name and customize the entire message using {{Placeholders}}
• Change the Trigger to be based on an action instead of a date

Let me know if any of those work for you!

Cheers,

Genevieve

BB2791

Hi @Genevieve P. ,

Apologies for taking so long to respond. Your advice was super helpful. I didn't realize that you can't combine placeholders in the email body and the selected fields. Removing those did the trick. Thank you!

micheal21

Hi @Genevieve P.

I am having this same problem and the way im looking at this there is no reason for smartsheet to override my subject line and consider the alert a reminder.

I do not not have any row level reminders set. All i have is 1 alert to send to someone every day of all the open items. I have using {{Name}} report. and include specific columns in alert. and that is it. The sheet has a specific name that is generic and does not specify which project the report is for.

I even changed the alert to trigger on specific criteria and it still just says reminder: report name.

Why is smartsheet overriding my subject line. If someone enters a subject in the subject line that subject entered by the user should override any automated naming scheme by smartsheet.