Pending Update Request

Kimberlee Maciel

Created a trigger to push an update notification with 19,995 rows and the action is still pending from Friday at 8am (4/2). Can you help me on what is happening and how I can get the performance to be increased and get those update notifications to create?

Genevieve P.

Hi @Kimberlee Maciel

Can you clarify what you mean when you say that the "action is still pending"? Do you mean that each row has an envelope icon showing that the Update Request was sent, but hasn't been completed yet:

If so, this means that whoever you sent the email to has not completed the Request. Update Requests ask for a user to open up a form and make changes to certain cells. Until they have opened the form and made the update, this envelope on the row will show that the email has been sent but no action has been taken.

If you did not mean to send19,000 emails, each with their own form to be filled out, you can delete Update Requests from the Update Request Log on the right hand side of the sheet:

From this Log you can see how many emails were sent, who they were sent to, what the Status is, and when the emails were sent. If the emails were received successfully and the forms are waiting for a response, the status will say "pending". Does that make sense?

Here is more information: Update Requests

If I've misunderstood your question, it would be helpful to know a bit more about your process and why you are sending out 19,000 emails, along with a screen capture of your sheet with the update requests, and I'm happy to help clarify further.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Kimberlee Maciel

Hi, It is not producing the email yet and shows that action is still pending. Let me share some screenshots.

The trigger was when the date of 4/2/2021 at 8am hit and action of "Request an update" sent to a contact in a cell, which is an email address you see above psdp@sutterhealth.org. All the 19,995 rows from the grid show pending since 9:37am PST on 4/2/2021.

Let me know if I can provide any additional information to help me along with this Smartsheet performance issue I seem to be having. Thank you!

Genevieve P.

Hi @Kimberlee Maciel

Thank you for these images!

So this means that you successfully sent an update request for 19,975 rows to the email address psdp@sutterhealth.org on 4/2/2021.

I've just tested on my own sheet and you would receive one email that contains a form to update all of the rows.

If you log in to the inbox for psdp@sutterhealth.org you should see one email with these requests in the inbox. If you do not, please check the junk folder, in case they were filtered by the junk or spam filter. (See: Issue: Email Not Received from Smartsheet)

You could also log in to this email's Smartsheet Account and check the notification center (the bell icon) to see if the requests were received there.

In order to get rid of the "Pending" notification, you will need to open up the Update Form:

Then each of the rows will need to be Updated, and click Next to get to the Next row. The form should show 1 / 19,975 at the bottom:

Are you able to find the email with the Update Request Form?

Cheers!

Genevieve

Kimberlee Maciel

Thank you! That is exactly what happened. I appreciate your help and guidance on this.

Genevieve P.

No problem! I'm glad we could figure it out 🙂

Kimberlee Maciel

One more question :)

Is there a way to get the email to not bundle the update request together even if they are assigned to the same person? So the assigned person would get individual emails for each row needing the update, not one email with all the rows they are assigned to update?

Genevieve P.

Hi @Kimberlee Maciel

If you add placeholders to the custom text of the body of the email this will split up rows into individual emails even if they're triggered at the same time. However, this will only work for up to 6 rows.

See: Dynamically Add Cell Data in the Subject and Body of Request Messages, where it says, "Placeholders will generate separate notifications if six or fewer rows are triggered simultaneously. If seven or more rows are triggered at once, the custom subject and body will be removed."

Do you expect to send more than 6 Update Requests at one time?

Kimberlee Maciel

ok, great information! Yes we will have some people that will get 50+ update request.

Genevieve P.

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, in that instance all 50 will appear in one form where they will need to click "next" to see the next row. I would imagine that these people will be happy not to receive 50 separate emails! Perhaps make it very clear in the custom subject that they will need to navigate through the rows?

Or, is there maybe a better way to ask them to update your sheet than to send 50 update requests? What about sending them a link to a Report and have them update their own, filtered rows from there?(Note that they would need to be shared to the underlying sheet to see rows in a Report.)

Kimberlee Maciel

yes not receiving 50 seperate emails is nice. When I was testing this I was finding that they have to update all 50 rows or they will not get the submit button, so I was trying to think of a way they can do an update at a time and come back to what they hadn't completed at a later time. Is there a way to do that?

Genevieve P.

I understand, and in this instance you would need them to be separate emails with separate forms so that they can complete each row at their leisure.

What is the trigger for your automation in order to send out these rows? Could you break it up so that certain rows are sent at one part of the day and other rows are sent later on in the day? (Multiple workflows, with conditions that filter the rows.)

Is there a reason you want all 50 rows to be updated via email instead of by using a Report or Sheet?