automation failures

Marvin Daniels

Both of these extremely basic automations fail to populate the requested fields.

A form is used to add rows to the sheet, so I realize the status (1) default could be set on the form, but why doesn't this work? It should only trigger on new rows and should not require the additional criteria of "status is blank" because status should always be blank at that point, but I've also tried this without that criteria ("status is any value") and it still doesn't work.

However, received date (2) cannot be set on the form, so this automation needs to work for that column.

I have subsequently fixed this by removing all criteria criteria ("any field changes"), but my belief is that as presented, both of these should work too.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Marvin Daniels

The reason these aren't triggering your workflows is because the cell doesn't change from a value to a blank cell: it was blank before, so it doesn't "change" to blank with the new row being added.

Instead of having it be the trigger, you'll want to add it as a condition block, like so:

The trigger will be that the new row is added, using any cell from that row to have the workflow run. Then your Condition Block tells the workflow when it should make the change... in this case, only if the cell you want to update is blank. (See: Condition Blocks: Filter What Your Automated Workflows Send)

Let me know if that makes sense or if I can clarify anything further!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi @Marvin Daniels

The reason these aren't triggering your workflows is because the cell doesn't change from a value to a blank cell: it was blank before, so it doesn't "change" to blank with the new row being added.

Instead of having it be the trigger, you'll want to add it as a condition block, like so:

The trigger will be that the new row is added, using any cell from that row to have the workflow run. Then your Condition Block tells the workflow when it should make the change... in this case, only if the cell you want to update is blank. (See: Condition Blocks: Filter What Your Automated Workflows Send)

Let me know if that makes sense or if I can clarify anything further!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Marvin Daniels

Thanks @Genevieve P.. Ultimately, that is what I did, however, I didn't understand why the original wasn't working, but with your explanation, that seems so obvious now. Thanks again!

Genevieve P.

No problem! 🙂