What Might Cause Copy Row Automation Workflows to Stop Working

Brian McElligott

I have created a set of Smartsheet folders with sheets, reports and dashboards, that are used as a "template" for projects. One of the sheets in the folder structure pulls data from other sheets, and has automations to "Copy Row" to another single sheet (not in the folder structure) of all projects. The goal is to pull all key project data (like name, manager, start / end dates, status, etc.) into a single sheet from where I can create dashboards.

When other users replicate (Save as New) the folder structure, the automations (there are 10 automations, one per hour) get an error and stop working.

The users have Admin access to the workspace where these folder structures are stored.

Is there a reason that the automations are erroring out - becoming Deactivated?

Paul Newcome

They also need to have access to the sheet where the rows are being moved to.

Brian McElligott

Thank you Paul.

After some testing, I found that users needed access to the final destination sheet, which I did not want to grant. I created an intermediate sheet, which was accessible by all the users and myself, and I then copied the data to the final destination sheet which I have access to (used for reporting).

Lesson Learned: Always keep access in mind when architecting a system.