Automate sending a form

Cynthia Lai

I would like to send out a form to a list of people on a specific schedule (weekly), so that they fill it in, and I collect the responses and report on the information.

Can I use the Automation feature for this, or is this something that can be configured in the Form?

How do I set up the automation feature to send the form and not the actual sheet? In this case, I don't want people to be able to see the sheet itself as it would have all responses.

Kelly Moore

Hey Cynthia

Thanks for the clarification of your process.

A FORM is used exactly as you described in your statement above. Information is collected with the intent on creating a new row. Forms ALWAYS generate new rows. Smartsheet gives us specific functionality in creating forms to help the user better understand the information being requested. There isn't specific automation to send the form out however an easy work-around is to send an automated alert out and embed the Form URL in the email message. This is what I do. Our very Smart friends here on the forum may have other workarounds.

In case you're not familiar with building automation-here's screenshots

The automation window opens (see pic below). Title your workflow, eg. Weekly Form Submission Alert

Choose WHEN A DATE REACHED as your trigger

Click the dropdown arrow by RUN ONCE and select CUSTOM

Choose the frequency of repetition that you desire. TODAY's date will be defaulted in as your Start Date. That is ok. Click Done

As you work your way down the automation window, choose your recipients - either individuals or from contact column(s). Then edit your message and insert the Form URL (see pic below). Be sure to select MESSAGE ONLY

An UPDATE REQUEST is used when users edit/update existing rows of information. There is built in automation for this and smartsheet has provided some documentation. Please see the link here

Please let me know if anything is unclear. I'll try to explain it better, or another community member will jump in.

Thanks for reaching out

Kelly

Genevieve P.

Hi @Cynthia Lai & @KDM

This may have to do with the fact that you're sending an automatic alert to a distribution email list - I've seen a few other Community posts that have different solutions when this is the email alerts are sent to:

• This Post was resolved when the user contacted their IT department to allow automations to be received.
• This Post was resolved by the user when they opened the Distribution List so that it could receive e-mails from the Internet. 

If you're contacting your IT department, you may want to provide them with this Help Article that contains the list of domains to add as accepted senders: Issue: Email Not Received from Smartsheet

Let me know if this works!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Kelly Moore

Hey @Cynthia Lai

The information that you wish to gather, is it brand new information such that the submitters are creating new rows in your sheet, or do the rows already exist and you wish the submitters to update cell in these existing rows with additional or edited information.

I ask because smartsheet has two methods for collecting information and how you set up automation could differ slightly. Please let me know if you're wanting

• A Form for completely new rows of information, or
• Update Requests to edit/update information in an existing row

Once this is clarified, we can build the automation. I'll wait for your reply

Kelly

Cynthia Lai

Hi Kelly,

The information being collected from the submitters would be new rows in the sheet.

Interesting though, that there are two possible workflows you're describing. It actually might be that I would eventually use both methods that you listed above. I could envision that once the submitter has sent in their information initially (the first week), subsequent info could then be considered an update/edit workflow.

Let's start with the first workflow - brand new information creating new rows in my sheet.

But would you be able to provide the how-to for the other workflow as well? So that in the future I can adjust it if needed.

Thank you.

Kelly Moore

Hey Cynthia

Thanks for the clarification of your process.

A FORM is used exactly as you described in your statement above. Information is collected with the intent on creating a new row. Forms ALWAYS generate new rows. Smartsheet gives us specific functionality in creating forms to help the user better understand the information being requested. There isn't specific automation to send the form out however an easy work-around is to send an automated alert out and embed the Form URL in the email message. This is what I do. Our very Smart friends here on the forum may have other workarounds.

In case you're not familiar with building automation-here's screenshots

The automation window opens (see pic below). Title your workflow, eg. Weekly Form Submission Alert

Choose WHEN A DATE REACHED as your trigger

Click the dropdown arrow by RUN ONCE and select CUSTOM

Choose the frequency of repetition that you desire. TODAY's date will be defaulted in as your Start Date. That is ok. Click Done

As you work your way down the automation window, choose your recipients - either individuals or from contact column(s). Then edit your message and insert the Form URL (see pic below). Be sure to select MESSAGE ONLY

An UPDATE REQUEST is used when users edit/update existing rows of information. There is built in automation for this and smartsheet has provided some documentation. Please see the link here

Please let me know if anything is unclear. I'll try to explain it better, or another community member will jump in.

Thanks for reaching out

Kelly

Cynthia Lai

Hi Kelly.

The workflow you describe above will be perfect for my scenario. Thank you for the detailed instructions.

Cynthia Lai

Hello - I have set up automated workflow as an alert. However, it did not sendthe alert (at all), at the desired scheduled date/time.

The workflow is set up as follows:

• Trigger: When a date is reached; Every Friday starting on 09/04/21 @ 10am (US/Pacific (GMT-8)
• Condition: no condition set
• Action: Alert Someone: Send to specific people <an email mailing list> , message only.

Not sure if I am missing something, or if there is a system issue.

Thanks,

Cynthia

Cynthia Lai

Additional information: The Automaton Permissions are set up as "Unrestricted"

Kelly Moore

Did you test it on yourself as the only recipient? If yes, it might be that your personal settings are not allowing you to send an alert to yourself.

You might need to check that box.

Cynthia Lai

The alert is not sending to the email list that it is set to send to. No one received the alert.

Kelly Moore

Ok, let's troubleshoot

If you clone the real workflow so you have a copy you can test and, instead of the mailing list, add your mailing address. Change the time and day to send to the nearest hour so you'll see the results as quickly as possible. For grins, check the box in your personal settings to allow notifications from changes you make to the sheet to ensure that doesn't snag your test.

Have you used the mailing list and smartsheet before?

Cynthia Lai

No I this is the first mailing list i have used for smart sheet.

Kelly Moore

Tell me more about the mailing list. Is it a distribution list within your smartsheet contacts?

Cynthia Lai

I cloned the workflow and set it to send to my email address, and another colleague. It sent the alert to the colleague, and I got a notification (within Smartsheet), and also received the email.

The mailing list is a distribution list that is made up of email addresses where some are smartsheet contacts. These people will only have access to fill out the form that is sent as a link, in the alert message body. They will not be able to see the smartsheet itself. There are a few recipients that are editors of the sheet, so they will have access to the sheet itself.

Kelly Moore

Pardon me as I ask for more clarification on your mailing list as I'm still not clear on how the names and/or email addresses were entered into smartsheet. I understand you have a mixture of email addresses and smartsheet contacts.

In the workflow, were the addresses hand entered under the option 'Send To Specific People'?

Cynthia Lai

In the workflow, the address of the mailing lists was hand entered (eg it did not exist in my SmartSheet contacts list).

I haven't been able to follow through on troubleshooting this issue, by trying to add the mailing list address by selecting it from the contacts list (once its added there).

Kelly Moore

I am surprised that manually entered email addresses added directly into the workflow are giving you problems. To confirm, the email addresses you are trying to email to are (1)valid and (2) allowed by your corporation for smartsheet to send to (for example, emails outside of my company's domain have to be 'white listed' by my company's smartsheet admin before emails will be sent to them.