Unlock multiple rows automation after approval

I'm trying to automate the unlocking of multiple rows, triggered by an approval request being approved.

Reason being: want to force users to submit a proposal before moving on to the next project steps.

Here's my automation setup:

Here is my sheet, where I just did a test approval request. The above alert sent to me as expected, but the rows did not unlock.

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Sandra Guzman

Hello @raven,

The unlocking of the rows can take a few minutes to update. I would suggest making sure to refresh your screen and check back after a few minutes.

Also, looking at the conditions listed, there may be an issue with too many data points that may be impacting the automation to run. If the row needs to be unlocked after approval, I would suggest listing that column as the condition. If you want to share the column headers you have, I can help guide you more if you need it. I would simply use my approval column as the condition and that should work.

All the best,

Sandra

raven

@Sandra Guzman thank you for your response. I checked the next day and the automation still had not run. I removed it from my workflows while I try to come up with another solution. In your above recommendation, would that unlock all rows on the sheet? I only want the task rows to unlock, as we have a project summary section that populates info with a formula - I do not want those rows unlocked as they should not be changed or touched :)

Sandra Guzman

Hi @raven,

Can you please explain what triggers the approval or how this is documented. Understanding what field or process you are using will help to determine next steps. Ideally, you would want to try to leverage data you are already capturing with your approval process if possible, but that may not meet your needs.

If the above option won't work, there are a couple of different solutions that you could also consider. This would involve using some helper colunns that can be hidden once they are created so that users don't have visibility to it. This allows for custom reports or like in this case, it can help with creating automation and using the helper column as one of the conditions.

Option (1) Create a helper column that identifies the task rows specifically. This can be done via a checkbox or simply writing task in the field. This could require more work if your team is allowed to add tasks to the sheet, so a little more work would need to be done to create some Smartsheet magic with formulas behind the scenes.

Option (2) Create a helper column that populates once the approval process is complete, formulas would be determined based on your approval process and would rely on a specific field to be completed.

All the best,

Sandra

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