Workflow on Specific "Rows"

La Toya

I want to create a workflow to send updates to a group distribution email for specific rows in Smartsheet. I have a column "Business Name" and want to notify a particular customer of changes in all their projects. This customer currently has 400 rows in our Smartsheet. I would like them to be notified of any changes impacting their locations. Is there a way for me to set up an automated workflow for these requirements? The business name is not unique as its "company name" plus location.

Anelise Wilhelm

@La Toya When you say that you want to send updates, do you mean "Update Requests" or simply and email notification?

Either way, you will need to have a column CustomerEmailAddress. This column will have the same email address for all those 400 rows. For a different BusinessName this column will have somebody else's email address.

Then you create an automation to alert someone when specified criteria are met. Inside this automation:

• Trigger: you can choose if you want the trigger to be only "When rows are changed" or "When rows are added or changed"
• When: you select the columns that you want to trigger the notification. Note that you can keep adding additional columns with OR in between them by selecting "Specify another change"
• Run workflow: When triggered (or do you want to send them in batches every hour, day or week?)
• In the Alert Someone block, change the dropdown to "Send to contacts in a cell" then select the CustomerEmailAddress field created above.
• Ensure that you change the automation permissions to "Unrestricted" to ensure that they get the email even if the sheet has not been shared with that person.

Of course, as always, start out with a small sample of your data in a TEST version of you sheet and make yourself be the receipient of the emails. Test until you get the results that you like and then implement that logic in the LIVE sheet.

Let me know if this works for you 😃

La Toya

@Anelise Wilhelm Thank you for the information. I would like for the smartsheet to send a workflow automated update. Is there a way for me to select or asterisk that I want all business names that relate to SQRL? Can I send it to a distribution list if I don't add them as a contact in a cell?

Anelise Wilhelm

@La Toya You can use the distribution list email address without adding it to a contact in a cell. You would use the "Send to specific people" option for that. Note that every time this automation is triggered the same list of people would get the email.

I'm still not very clear what you mean by "a workflow automated update". If you mean to send an update request instead of a simple email, yes, that is possible. Just choose the "Request an update" action and enter you distribution list email address in the "Send to specific people" box.

"Is there a way for me to select or asterisk that I want all business names that relate to SQRL? "

You could add a condition between the trigger block and the update request block, like this:

Hope this helps 😃

La Toya

@Anelise Wilhelm, I made the changes as requested, but I am not receiving any alert updates on any changes I am making in my test environment.

Anelise Wilhelm

@La Toya You'll need to adjust the first block, the Trigger/When area. For testing, change the Trigger to "When rows are changed" (you can change this back later if needed).

You said "I would like them to be notified of any changes impacting their locations."

In the When area, select another column that will get changed, and set it to "Any Value" (because the name of the business will not really change). I don't know your other columns but perhaps you want them to be get the update request when someone updates a Quantity column??? OR when a change is made in the Price column?

Remember that you can add multiple triggers by using the "Specify another change" link.

Does this help? 😃

La Toya

Thank you so much for your help

Anelise Wilhelm

@La Toya I'm glad that it worked out for you. Please select some of the applicable reactions on my original answer post. It will help other people with similar needs to find this answer 😃