Automation: How do I trigger an action (i.e. Alert Someone) 24 hours after a field changes?

twarner

I want to trigger an Alert action 24 hours after a field changes to "Approved".

I've already figured out how to capture the time of the Approval by adding a "Copy Row" action to a second sheet and using the time stamp in a Modified (date) column of that new row. I can use that time stamp column to calculate the date/time in 24 hours from then.

However, I am stumped as to how to use that date/time data to then trigger an action.

The best I see is to trigger an action at a preset time on the next day, which is too inaccurate for my purposes.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tony

AnthroTim

Hi Tony,

This feels a bit hacky and may not be accurate enough, but you could have multiple date triggers (they would each need to be in their own automation).

You could then have 1 per hr. E.g.

This could filter against a field indicating if 24hrs had passed and send the notification if 24hrs had passed (and indicate that has had been done - so it doesn't get picked up by the other triggers).

You'd end up with 24 automations if you wanted 24hr a day alerting, but if you only wanted it in business hrs that could be less).

Tim

AnthroTim

Hi Tony,

This feels a bit hacky and may not be accurate enough, but you could have multiple date triggers (they would each need to be in their own automation).

You could then have 1 per hr. E.g.

This could filter against a field indicating if 24hrs had passed and send the notification if 24hrs had passed (and indicate that has had been done - so it doesn't get picked up by the other triggers).

You'd end up with 24 automations if you wanted 24hr a day alerting, but if you only wanted it in business hrs that could be less).

Tim

twarner

Tim - that sounds like it would work. I agree it's a bit of a hack, but sometimes Smartsheet leaves us with no choice. Thanks for the input. I'll wait a couple days to see if anyone comes up with something more elegant before I select yours as the answer.

Much appreciate the input.

Tony