Is there a way to exclude Automation from changing Modified By?

Hey all! We use Smartsheet to record all of our records for our clients. We use the Modified By column to keep track on who last touched the cell so if there is any questions that come up we know who to go to.

I tried to setup a automation for recording dates when a column says a specific text. IE when column "Status" = lost connection then record today in column "Status Changed Date". But with using this automation it is changing our Modified By column to automation@smartsheet.com rather than the user that actually modified the cells.

My question is, is there a way to not include the automation user in the Modified By column? If not is there another way I can accomplish what I was trying to do with automatically adding dates?

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Andrée Starå

Hi @Robert Pitcher

You can add the automation email as an exclusion in the workflow.

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Robert Pitcher

Hi @Andrée Starå

I am unsure of how I can add the email as a exclusion. Can you provide me with some documentation or a short how-to? Much appreciated!

Robert Pitcher

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/276557#Comment_276557

I am unsure of how I can add the email as a exclusion. Can you provide me with some documentation or a short how-to? Much appreciated!

Mark S Krebs

Robert, for who last touched cells, why not just right click and view the edit history of the cell? Modified by is not helpful for cell edits as you're finding. Definitely a Smartsheet enhancement is need to have an easier way to see all edits in a grouped report. Activity on the right bar is okay but could be improved IMO.

May Ann Olazo

Same question as @Robert Pitcher . I have a column which is set to Auto Number/System> Modified By. Is there a way to not capture automation@smartsheet.com in this column?

Richard Coles

Doesn't seem to be any way of capturing the last real person who modified a record, no automations that would allow copying the real person to a new column because automations don't support copying a value from one column to another (which I thought I might be able to UNLESS the person was automation@smartsheet.com)

Quite annoying when you want to alert the person who last modified something that something's happened they need to do something about, but that person's name has been over-written by automation

Cbastien

Hi all,

I think i've found something that could help.

Since automations won't handle some dynamic columns such as "modified by", I tought we could convert it's content as text by creating a new "helper" column in wich we would only copy the "modified by" data to it.

Try the following:

Create a new text column.

Insert "=[NAME OF THE MODIFIED BY COLUMN]@row"

and convert as column formula

The data of the new column can now be transfered to another sheet by automation.

Another way would be to use an INDEX MATCH combination in your second sheet to pull info of the "modified by" column from the main sheet.

Does that helps?

Excuse me if it's unclear since english is not my primary language😅

Cbastien

@Robert Pitcher

I see it's been a while you posted that question but I would like to know how you solved it.

I think i've found something that could help.

Try the following:

Create a new text column.

Insert "=[NAME OF THE MODIFIED BY COLUMN]@row"

and convert as column formula

The data of the new column can now be transfered to another sheet by automation.

Another way would be to use an INDEX MATCH combination in your second sheet to pull info of the "modified by" column from the main sheet.

Does that helps? Is there a better solution?

Regards, Cbastien.

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