Difference between submitted and approval time using approval workflow

Vinton Douglas

Hello

With regards to creating an approval workflow, are we able to display the difference between the submitted and approval time?

Kelly Moore

Hey @Vinton Douglas \

Capturing the difference in time depends upon the time increment you need. You can easily capture days between approval steps using the Record Date automation. This would be very straight forward.

Would this work for you?

Kelly

Vinton Douglas

Thanks much. It records the date but not the time. Is there such a solution?

Kelly Moore

Correct - Record date can only give you the difference in days. Currently, in the native Smartsheet functionality only the system columns of Created and Modified record the time. There are options of add-ons such as Zapier, Bridge, etc helping with this data collection. There are ways using move rows to collect. But no, there is not a straight forward way to collect the time- and once done, there is not a simple way to calculate the time difference. Searching the community posts will show you work arounds and limitations.

kelly

Andrée Starå

Hi @Vinton Douglas

I hope you're well and safe!

To add to Kelly's excellent advice/answer.

The method below can be used to collect the time, and then then you can calculate the difference.

Please have a look at my post below with a method I developed.

More info: 

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/68589/lock-or-store-date-value-solution-without-using-zapier

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Have a fantastic weekend & Happy New Year!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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