Automation: Email Alerts and Mapping Attachments

Danica H.

I have a form that others in our organization use to submit projects to my department. How it should work: 1) the form when complete populates a row in the Spreadsheet. 2) automation maps certain fields in the form to a PDF. 3) The new row triggers an email to our department with the PDF attached.

This used to work properly, but for several months now, the mapped PDF is not being sent with the email. I wonder if the order of operations is backwards: that the email is being sent before the PDF can be generated. However, I'm unable to map the document first within the same automation workflow., as there is no "Add an action" option after "Generate document."

My other hoped-for solution—to run the workflow hourly rather than when triggered—is also not an option.

I've set up a stopgap solution where the workflow is triggered when attachments are added or changed, but this is liable to trigger duplicate emails, since the original users also upload documents to the form.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Alexis R

Not to distract from your issue Danica, but I have been experiencing similar issues with automations triggering recently. Just like you I have a few sheets that have a Form to PDF to Email workflow style, and just like you they only recently started having problems. I suspect Smartsheet may have made changes to the logic behind certain automation conditions or triggers and as users we're left to figure it out ourselves. Just this morning, I'm having to resolve another one that was brought to my attention today. I've been able to find workarounds for some of my sheets, but each one had slightly different solutions / workarounds so unfortunately I don't have a single fix I can offer for your specific problem.

Potential solution: If you want to avoid triggering the email when users upload attachments to the initial form submission, try setting the email trigger to "When rows are changed" and have your mapped PDF automation set to trigger only "When rows are added." If all goes well and the orders of operation are followed, the mapped PDF generation should trigger as a row change, and your email should include it when it fires off. Hope that helps.