Double link from cell in other sheet works erratic

Rudy Moons

HI,

I've created a program management tool where we can manage all our different projects.

For the moment i'm working on a Charter approval flow, in different stages.

Each project manager has his own Workspace, where all his projects are stored. Everyone has at least viewing permission on all projects. All projects are linked in one master data Smartsheet grid

In this test case i'm owner of all sheets

The idea is when the PM set the cell in his charter "ready for approval" to Yes, an automated flow starts (see below)

When PMO approve the charter this cell is set to "Approved" and an approval flow is started.

(The next steps aren't added yet, because of the issue with the last step.)

When Yes is selected a first workflow is started, send a mail to PMO for evaluating the charter.

When the charter is approved (or canceled) a messages is send to PMO to start an approval flow

The message when the Charter is ready (Yes) works fine, I get an e-mail to inform me.

When set to Approved, the approval flow doesn't start. The cell in the master data is set to "Approved" so the links do work, only the workflow isn't triggert.

When i manually change the value to "Approved" on a row in the master data sheet, then all works as it should? (for test purpose only the green row is currently linked to its charter)

any thoughts?

Thanks

Genevieve P.

Hi @Rudy Moons

Since this works when you manually change the value to "Approved" I believe I know what's happening. Based on your third image, it looks like the "Approved" value is coming into another sheet either through a cell-link or a cross-sheet formula.

Actions that will automatically modify the sheet (such as Approval Requests) cannot be triggered by inbound cell-links or cross-sheet formulas. See the bottom bullet point in this Help Center article, here: Trigger Blocks: Define When Your Workflow is Executed

As an alternative, you may want to use either a time-based automation or recurrence workflows. Let me know if you have questions about this.

Cheers!

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi @Rudy Moons

Since this works when you manually change the value to "Approved" I believe I know what's happening. Based on your third image, it looks like the "Approved" value is coming into another sheet either through a cell-link or a cross-sheet formula.

Actions that will automatically modify the sheet (such as Approval Requests) cannot be triggered by inbound cell-links or cross-sheet formulas. See the bottom bullet point in this Help Center article, here: Trigger Blocks: Define When Your Workflow is Executed

As an alternative, you may want to use either a time-based automation or recurrence workflows. Let me know if you have questions about this.

Cheers!

Genevieve