Advanced Notifications: Stay on Top of Important Changes

Russ Anderson

I have been waiting for these more advanced notifications for a while now. Thanks for getting this to a much happier place. 

 

I tried creating a generalized "team" notification when any given shared user is assigned a task, I would like them to receive the notificaiton. From what it looks like currently, this is possible, but I would have to create an alert for each person that the sheet is shared with.

 

What I'm wondering is, can the "Current user" logic from the newest filter changes be applied to notifications as well?

 

When the "contact column A" is assigned to "Current User", notify the "Current User" "at the set duration".

 

This functionality would ALMOST make the notifications as good as @Mentioning someone.

Mike Wilday

That would be difficult to set. Because that would require the current user to log-in to the smart sheet to set the notification. Meaning if user B never looked at the sheet - they would never be contacted. If you select in the email dropdown Shared Users... everyone shared on the sheet - your team, would be contacted. You can also select your team - if its a subset of shared users and it would automatically contact that person.

Kevin Tao

Hi Russ,

 

If I understand your scenario correctly, you can do this by selecting a column as the recipient of the notification.

 

For example, if you want to email the person in the "Assigned To" column whenever a row is assigned to them, choose the "When a row is assigned" notification template, and in the "When" section, change it to read "Assigned To changes to Any Value", then in the "Email" section, change the recipient to "Assigned To".

 

Hope that helps.

Mike Wilday

You just need to be sure that your "assigned to" column is a contact-list type column. Right-click on the column header to see the column type. Then when someone gets input into that column, the system would email that person. So your email selection would be to that column.

 

But if you are wanting to include other users in the team, then you would need to set up another alert for that and include all shared users that you want to be shared. 

 

Russ Anderson

Mike, that's my issue here. If I have 15 people on the team that need to receive alerts whenever a row is assigned to them, I have to setup 15 different alerts. If that was for one sheet that wouldn't be a big deal, it wouldn't be great, but it would be okay. Problem is, we don't just work in one sheet. We have dozens of sheets.

 

My "assigned to" column is already formatted as a contact-list type.

 

It would also be amazing if I could choose a group of sheets, and set the same alerts for all of the sheets at one time. 

J. Craig Williams

Russ,

 

You need to set up each sheet.

You don't need to set up each user.

 

If the [assigned to] column is a Contact List type, then when selecting, when selecting who the email should go to, you should see the [assigned to] column as a choice:

 

 

This will go to user listed in the column for the changed row.

 

Craig

 

Russ Anderson

Thanks Craig, but that's not what I'm looking for. You would still have to create an alert for each tem member.

 

This is what I would like to see. One alert that would work for all users and only email the user that the row is now assigned to.

 

J. Craig Williams

Russ,

 

This won't work for you?

 

 

Craig

J. Craig Williams

I would also like it to send one last notification to the previous assigned to, but that may be asking too much.

 

Craig

Russ Anderson

That would email everyone on the team whenever the assigned to changes. That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

Mike Wilday

Hi Russ, 

 

I think you might be confused. The notification that J. Craig set up will only email the person that is assigned to the row. If a row changes. So if you have a task and you put Joe Schmoe in the assigned to column - only Joe Schmoe would get emailed. 

If that got reassigned to Jill Smill, as soon as its changed, Jill Smill would get the notification. 

 

The notifications work based on the row, not on the entire column... so the notifications are looking at the rows, and if the criteria is met - in J Craig's case - the assigned to field changes, it would email whoever was just put in that row. 

 

Does that make sense? 

Mike Wilday

Only the content from the changed row would be emailed to the individual it was assigned to.