activity log recognizing notifications

Khari Shiver

Hello,

I have an automation set up to notify people when a row is added to a grid. I looked at the activity log associated with the grid and don't see an indication that it ran but am positive it did because I received it. Does the activity log not track certain types of notifications?

Thanks

Genevieve P.

Hi @Khari Shiver

You are correct: the Activity Log does not record when/if automations run from the sheet. Instead of telling you that an automation was sent, it will tell you if a workflow is created and it will track the change that triggered the workflow (ex. the details of the new row that was added). You can see a list of items that the Activity Log will track in this Help Article: Track the History of Changes with Activity Log

Please let the Product team know about your feedback by filling in this form, here!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi @Khari Shiver

You are correct: the Activity Log does not record when/if automations run from the sheet. Instead of telling you that an automation was sent, it will tell you if a workflow is created and it will track the change that triggered the workflow (ex. the details of the new row that was added). You can see a list of items that the Activity Log will track in this Help Article: Track the History of Changes with Activity Log

Please let the Product team know about your feedback by filling in this form, here!

Cheers,

Genevieve

cbredehoeft

Hi @Genevieve P. I am having a similar issue. I have a Message Only notification (only time I have ever used it) to go out each week at the same time. It has worked beautifully- until we needed to pause the notification. I do know there are copies of the sheets the message is pulling from and I have turned the notice off (as far as I know). However, the notification still went out and it is really frustrating to have send a follow-up email each week to say ignore the message. I am searching again today in preparation for next week, but this is a real flaw with Smartsheet (the notice should have some reference point). I would like to know that if someone copied the sheets with the notification and I do not have access to it- would the notification still be activated for that user? TIA

Genevieve P.

Hi @cbredehoeft

If someone saved a copy of your sheet with Save as New, then yes, there is an option to keep workflows active on that sheet, sending out the same email but from a different source.

With Message Only notifications, there's a workflow ID in the very bottom of the email.

Although this does not tell you the sheet name, you can check in any of the copies to see which one has this Workflow ID.

Cheers,

Genevieve

cbredehoeft

@Genevieve P. where would I find the ID withing the automation of the sheet in order to check?

Thanks!

Genevieve P.

Hi @cbredehoeft

Workflow IDs can be found under the Properties section of the Workflow:

cbredehoeft

Thanks so much!

electrichead

I had a similar concern and solved it myself by numbering my automations. When notifications are sent I include the automation number followed by a ".x" number so I can pinpoint which part of the automation sent the message. This was all before (just here, now) learning there was a Workflow ID. I like the idea of the workflow ID, but I'll likely stick with my original work around as the primary way because:

1. Workflow ID is buried in a menu vs. I can see my self created ID # at a glance within the Manage Automation window. A work around could be to manually type the workflow ID into your automation name.

2. The sub-numbering system allows me to find and drill down to a specific message. The Workflow ID only lets me drill to the specific workflow, but not the specific notification within in the workflow.

3. I can also find this at a glance once I'm within the automation, because before you click on a given notification the bottom of the email message shows, which is where I put the message ID.

4. The numbering provides me a way to sort my workflow. Since I pre-planned my workflow with in a flow chart I was able to number the steps sequentially and keep that order in my Automation Manager. Yes, adding steps later can disrupt this. But it gave me a good foundation to build on.

It takes a tiny bit of diligence to set up, but doing this has quickly paid me back in saved time troubleshooting. Perhaps in the future Smartsheet can pull the Workflow ID out of the menus and make it more apparent and give us a way to drill down more?

Last, since I have multiple sheets I use the first two digits in my numbering to tell me which sheet the automation is coming from. I haven't put that number in my sheet name, I'm just keeping track separately and good or bad my cheat way of knowing this easily is the order of my sheets in my workspace panel. This may fail if I ever rename the sheets, but works for now.

Looking inside automation 0010…

Looking inside an email from automation 0010…