Smartsheet Alerts - "Message Only" option duplicates the message body
Hi,
Can someone explain to me how to get the "Message Only" alerts to only display the supplied message once?
I set up an alert on a sheet that triggers on a date value. The intent of this alert is to act as a reminder, and send a link to a Smartsheet form to a user on a sheet who submitted data in the past X days.
So I set up an "Alert Someone" automation that is simply a "Message Only" alert that contains text like:
"Hi {{Name}}, thanks for sending in that info last week. If you could please use this form to update that entry, that would be great! [URL to Smartsheet Webform]." Then they can click the link in the email, check the one box on the form I would like them to see, and close it.
The problem is, when I receive the email alert for this, it shows up like this with the message body duplicated:
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"Hi {{Name}}, thanks for sending in that info last week. If you could please use this form to update that entry, that would be great! [URL to Smartsheet Webform]."
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"Hi {{Name}}, thanks for sending in that info last week. If you could please use this form to update that entry, that would be great! [URL to Smartsheet Webform]."
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Anyone know why? Thanks for your help!
For Context - I'm doing it this way because there's currently no functionality in Smartsheet to "send a Smartsheet webform" as an alert (this idea - https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/3702/suggestion-ability-to-choose-a-form-for-update-request). This functionality would solve my problem and would be useful in many other aspects of our business. I could set up an alert that would send one of the webforms attached to the sheet when a date was reached, and I could include required fields, edit the names of the fields, add headers and dividers, etc. I know I can do an update request and only include specific columns, but Webforms give you control over the aesthetics and required fields, and Update Requests do not. Sometimes the aesthetics really do matter.
Best Answer
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Hi @Peter Hill,
If you're still experiencing issues with duplicate messages in your Alert emails and you're unable to determine the root cause, I highly recommend reaching out to our Support team to help troubleshoot this. Also, if you haven't done so already, you may want to Submit a Product Enhancement Request to see about having features such as required fields added on to Update Requests in a future release.
More information on Forms and Update Requests can be found in the following Help articles from the Learning Center:
- Forms
- Edit or Remove Fields in a Form
- Automatically Request Updates on Tasks
- Dynamically Add Cell Data in the Subject and Body of Request Messages
Thanks,
Ben
Answers
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@Peter Hill Any chance more than one row or more than one change is triggering your automation? That is the only way I can replicate your situation.
In my experience, delivery of alert messages from SmartSheet is a bit lumpy so I suspect the alert tool is doing some sort of batching. If more than one action created the alert condition, the tool may try to send several alerts in one message.
By the way, how do you get the response from the form to write the result onto the correct row in the sheet? To my understanding, a form always creates new rows.
Cheers,
Dale
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Good morning Dale,
Thanks so much for the feedback! That's a great observation about the duplicates. I hadn't considered that but I'm the only one testing the sheet right now, so that duplicate row idea could actually be what's causing that. I'll do some more testing to see if that's it.
As far as getting the response to go to the correct row, it's an Update Request (we'll call this UR#1) so it's tied to the row and that isn't a problem. They submit the form (which asks them to input words into one of four text fields--their choice of which field) on let's say, Monday. I have an Update Request set up (UR #1) to send to them 7 days after their last submission. It includes the fields they may have input data into, as well as a corresponding checkbox for each of those fields. That way all they have to do is check the box that corresponds to the data they input to mark it as complete.
THEN, I have an Alert set up (we'll call this Alert#1) that monitors a second checkbox/formula column that is called "Completed?" that checks to make sure they input data and checked it off. If they input something and checked it off, "Completed?" changes to "TRUE". Once they check it off as completed in the previous Update Request #1, then this Alert will trigger and just send them the generic message and webform link without any columns to edit or view.
When they click that webform and make a new submission, Update Request #1 kicks in and restarts the weekly check in process.
Let me know if that didn't make sense!
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Hi @Peter Hill,
If you're still experiencing issues with duplicate messages in your Alert emails and you're unable to determine the root cause, I highly recommend reaching out to our Support team to help troubleshoot this. Also, if you haven't done so already, you may want to Submit a Product Enhancement Request to see about having features such as required fields added on to Update Requests in a future release.
More information on Forms and Update Requests can be found in the following Help articles from the Learning Center:
- Forms
- Edit or Remove Fields in a Form
- Automatically Request Updates on Tasks
- Dynamically Add Cell Data in the Subject and Body of Request Messages
Thanks,
Ben
