Trigger an Automation after an Event is over (Time specific workflow)

wfowler

Hi everyone, I manage producing events in higher ed, and I'm trying to set up a workflow which sends a recap automation to our workers after an event is over. This is to collect notes and details with information from boots on the ground to help build reports and dashboards.

In our sheet we have a column for date, and then a multi-select dropdown column for both Event Start Time and Event End Time (12 hour cycle), it is not a Text/Number column. I attached a screenshot of what that column looks like. I have only been able to set up an automation for a fixed time (8pm) linked to the day of the event, but I'd like to trigger the automation right when the event finishes to ping our team when everything is fresh in their mind. Is there a way to use a formula, or modify our columns, to achieve this?

Thanks for any tips!

Darren Mullen

@wfowler Unfortunately Smartsheet doesn't really have time based formulas. What you could do, is schedule several workflows like the workflow like you already have scheduled at 8PM, but make the criteria match the time of day.

For example, schedule a daily workflow to run at 9PM and it would only send something out if the condition was that the event end time was 9PM. You would have to do this for every hour that you have events ending. Now, they automation probably won't run exactly at 9PM, but it should be close enough to achieve the result you are looking for.

Otherwise, I don't know of any other way to do that.

Darren Mullen

@wfowler Unfortunately Smartsheet doesn't really have time based formulas. What you could do, is schedule several workflows like the workflow like you already have scheduled at 8PM, but make the criteria match the time of day.

For example, schedule a daily workflow to run at 9PM and it would only send something out if the condition was that the event end time was 9PM. You would have to do this for every hour that you have events ending. Now, they automation probably won't run exactly at 9PM, but it should be close enough to achieve the result you are looking for.

Otherwise, I don't know of any other way to do that.