Automation to change cell value not working

Matt Stewart

I have SCC setup to provision projects.

Inside the project plan there is a variety of data coming from the intake sheet that will be used to determine what duration to pull from a separate master lead time sheet via INDEX/MATCH. The final lead times populate the Duration Planner column for every task.

In addition, there is a MigrationData column that checks if any additional parameters coming from the metadata sheet should be adjusted to completed or not by adding a C to rows in this column that should be changed to "completed".

I then want (ideally only at project provisioning) to use the Change Cell Value automation to update the task status field (single select drop down) based on any fields that have 0 in the Duration Planner or C in the MigrationData column.

No matter what i try i can not get it working. What am i missing and how can i make this work?

Things that i have tried:

1. Triggered by ANY changes to DurationPlanner or MigrationData columns with the condition that it is a 0 or a C. - DOES NOT WORK
2. Triggered by ANY changed to a "Trigger" column that is an inbound link to intake sheet. Requires additional step of changing the text in this intake sheet after a project is provisioned. - DOES NOT WORK
3. Record A Date automation to add todays date to a "datetrigger" column every day at 8am (this part works), combined with a separate change cell value automation set to trigger by ANY changes to the datetrigger column. - DOES NOT WORK
4. Used a "Final Duration" formula column to simply pull the values from Duration planner, and trigger from ANY changes to the Final Duration column. - DOES NOT WORK

Genevieve P.

Hi @Matt Stewart

Since your action is a Change Cell action which modifies the sheet, it sounds like you're running into an issue because with this type of action the workflow cannot be triggered by a cell-link or cross-sheet formula (or a formula referencing a cell link or cross-sheet formula). See the note at the bottom of this article: Trigger Blocks: Define When Your Workflow is Executed

Instead of having your trigger based off of if a row is added or changed, try using the Date trigger instead (ex. every day at 8am, like your Record a Date workflow) with a Condition Block to check for the 0 or C.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi @Matt Stewart

For problem 1, yes, there is potential that it could take time until the project is then set up how you would want it.

For problem 2, you can set an additional Condition in the workflow that says that the Created Date would be in the last (days). This means it will stop any further update to your project if the Created Date of the row is in the past two days (for example). However, if anyone creates new rows that meet the criteria, then the workflow would take these into account as they are created. Would this help?

Cheers!

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi @Matt Stewart

Since your action is a Change Cell action which modifies the sheet, it sounds like you're running into an issue because with this type of action the workflow cannot be triggered by a cell-link or cross-sheet formula (or a formula referencing a cell link or cross-sheet formula). See the note at the bottom of this article: Trigger Blocks: Define When Your Workflow is Executed

Instead of having your trigger based off of if a row is added or changed, try using the Date trigger instead (ex. every day at 8am, like your Record a Date workflow) with a Condition Block to check for the 0 or C.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Matt Stewart

Yes I tried that and it wasn’t working, but eventually it did start working. Problem with this solution is:

problem 1: it has to wait to update until a specific time each day. So if I provision a project a min after the automation time setup, I have to wait 24 hours until project is fully setup correctly

problem 2: it has to run every day for life of project. I just want it to run once.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Matt Stewart

For problem 1, yes, there is potential that it could take time until the project is then set up how you would want it.

For problem 2, you can set an additional Condition in the workflow that says that the Created Date would be in the last (days). This means it will stop any further update to your project if the Created Date of the row is in the past two days (for example). However, if anyone creates new rows that meet the criteria, then the workflow would take these into account as they are created. Would this help?

Cheers!

Genevieve

L Darvesh

Hi @Genevieve P. I hope you can help me with the same issue of cell change not working.

Trigger = when a row is changed, and 'assigned to' cell changes to 'any value',

No other condition

Action = Change a cell - change from 'Open' to 'Closed' (this cell is a dropdown, not sure if that is relevant).

This is not working on its own.....however if I 'force' it by selecting 'Run Now', it works.

Am I missing something very basic?

Would appreciate your help with this. Thanks

Genevieve P.

Hi @L Darvesh

Two things to check here:

• Since your trigger is when the "Assigned To" value is changed, this means that newly added rows are not seen as a "change". This should only trigger if the row exists you're changing the value in the cell. Is that what you want to happen? If not, adjust the trigger to be when rows are Added and Changed.
• How is the change happening? Actions that modify a sheet (e.g. change a cell) can't be triggered by cell-linked cells or cross-sheet references. The change in the "Assigned To" column would need to be a manual input.