Workflow keeps deactivating (“workflow became invalid” email) but nothing looks broken and the activity log shows no disable entry

Question

I have a workflow that keeps deactivating itself. Each time I get a “workflow became invalid” email, but when I open the workflow nothing looks broken. I have to turn it back on manually. It then works for a while and deactivates again. The activity log shows no entry for the deactivation. I think there is a correlation to when we get several form entries in quick succession, but I'm unsure.

Setup:

* Workflow A: When rows are added (via form) → Record a date in ‘Date Created’*. This one has had no issues.
* Workflow B (the one that keeps deactivating): When rows are added or changed → when ‘Date Created’ changes to any value → change cell ‘Initial Alert Trigger’ (checkbox) to checked.
* Workflow C: When rows are changed → when ‘Initial Alert Trigger’ changes to checked → send an alert to contacts in a cell. The contact cell is populated by a formula using a lookup sheet.

I originally had B and C combined as one workflow, and it kept going invalid in the same way. I split them to troubleshoot, and now Workflow B is the one that deactivates.

*I’m using my own ‘Date Created’ column rather than the system column because I’ve seen system-generated values get lost when rows are moved, copied, or archived.

Paul Newcome · Answer

@jhenderson1 What if you were to use a formula in the [Initial Alert Trigger] checkbox?

=IF(AND(ISDATE([Date Column]@row), [Contact Column]@row <> "", …………….), 1)

jhenderson1 · Answer

Thanks Paul. One of the reasons I set it up this way was to build in a delay; the contacts for my initial alert are populated using a lookup formula, and there are other formulas that are meant to inform the initial alert. Is there any risk of my alerts going out prematurely if I trigger it when rows are added? I don't want to create another problem by solving this one, especially if the root cause is a technical issue with Smartsheet. I have created a support ticket though and I appreciate your response.

Paul Newcome · Answer

Try having it trigger when the row is added instead of when the previous automation changes the cell value. You are supposed to be able to string a few of these together like this, but there have been a lot of automation issues lately. I would also recommend reaching out to support to at least report the behavior.