Automation Workflow Triggers - Delayed response

Chadd

I'm not sure if this is normal, but I have a simple automation to update a cell value when another cell value is changed. The trigger is working and the update works, but there is a significant delay in the response time. Over a minute from the time I make the change until the automatic update is performed on the sheet. Maybe this is normal?

Paul Newcome

According to Smartsheet's documentation, automations could take up to 15 minutes after the sheet is saved to fire off, so really 1 or 2 minutes isn't all that terrible.

Chadd

Thanks for the feedback on this. I was hoping for more immediate response.

Paul Newcome

According to Smartsheet's documentation, automations could take up to 15 minutes after the sheet is saved to fire off, so really 1 or 2 minutes isn't all that terrible.

Chadd

Thanks for the feedback on this. I was hoping for more immediate response.

Ashwini

I understand that it can be delayed, but this has never been the case. Its spoiling the image of Smartsheet as a preferred tool to proceed. It's really embarrassing when we demo this to the clients.

Chadd

Ashwini, Thank you for the additional insight. I believe the documentation says that the automations are 'hosted' service in the pacific time zone. It makes me think that every smart sheet with every client across the country are all 'managed' by one service location? Not sure that I have the right understanding of how this works, but that might explain why there are delays in the processing. Here is what it says in the Learning Center documentation:

Pacific Time overrides

When changes are made to a sheet via automation, cell links, or cross sheet formulas, the whole sheet is converted to Pacific Time. Automations services are hosted by service users with a Pacific Time setting. This means that TODAY() formulas and display system column display values may get updated if you are in a different time zone.

Nic H

My team is also experiencing delays in workflows that send Alerts. The workflows are set to "when triggered", however, the Alerts may arrive several hours later. This is becoming a very significant problem. Can someone from Smartsheet help me troubleshoot and fix this?

Paul Newcome

@Nic H Also have your IT team double check that there is not some kind of delay with the email server. I have seen that cause problems before with company email servers thinking it is spam and having to get domains whitelisted and whatnot to avoid issues.

wooddw

We have a problem with automation rules running more than hour late or not running at all. For example, there is a rule to request an update that runs each workday at 9am - no other condition - just run at 9am. However, yesterday it didn't run at all and the previous day it ran around 10:30am. I understand it won't run at 9am but I would expect to run within 15-20 minutes. Anyone else experiencing this? I changed the time to run now at 8 expecting it to around 9 but that is not ideal.

_NC_

Hello,

We are also having the same problem. We have a smartsheet built form that participants fill out. Then, once they submit it, we have a trigger set up to send an alert to our inbox. But it's taking a very long time for those alerts to come through.

The trigger is when the email box has "any value" added to it. It's a required question, so every submission has to have something in that box. Then, the automation is set to trigger an alert to our inbox to let us know someone submitted the form. While I can see that a new line with the information gets added to the sheet within 10-15 seconds of the form submission, the alert email is not reaching the inbox for anywhere from 20+min to multiple hours later.

I don't think the earlier suggestion about whitelisting would help, as the problem is not the emails going to the spam folder. They arrive in the normal inbox, just much much later they should.

Any suggestion for quicker alert delivery would be appreciated.

crawlings

We have this issue too in slow response - how do we find out if there is any planned development to resolve this?

Thanks

Chris

RSC

I am also having the same issue. Sometimes the automation happens within a few seconds, sometimes hours (for a date to be recorded when data is entered…SUPER simple stuff.) There seems to be a lot of complaints around this issue.

The automations I have in place are meant to help users, and instead it is causing a roadblock to adoption. In the time it takes for the automation to kick in, we can just manually update it ourselves. so then what's the point? Only for large collections of data? Then I should just go back to excel.

rsc

maxgonzaga

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/350880#Comment_350880

Hi Paul! Would you be able to provide me with link where you read this information?

Paul Newcome

@Genevieve P. I remember reading somewhere some time ago that automations will fire within 15 minutes of the trigger being saved, but I can't seem to find that article anymore. Do you know where we can find some documentation on how long we should expect things to take between trigger save and automation firing?

Genevieve P.

Hiya!
Thanks for the tag, @Paul Newcome

I remember this as well, but I don't have a direct link for this thread at the moment.

What I will say is that 15 minutes is very rare and would be a big delay. The expected time is less than 5 minutes, but it can be up to 15 on rare occasions when a sheet is very complex or a lot of other actions are happening as well.

If your automation is taking longer than 15 minutes to run, please open a Smartsheet Support ticket with the Sheet URL and Workflow name / ID as this should be looked into.

Thanks!
Genevieve