Automation Suddenly Not Working

I have an "Request Approval" workflow I created back in August 2019 that was working perfectly fine until late last week. I can't find any reason for it. Nothing was changed on our end. Is anyone else having automation problems??

Answers

  • Andrée Starå
    Andrée Starå ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Hi Alejandra,

    I’ve seen a couple of people having an issue with automation recently, but I don’t know if there is a connection.

    If you haven’t already, I would recommend that you reach out to theSmartsheet Support Team.

    I hope that helps!

    Have a fantastic week!

    Best,

    Andrée Starå

    Workflow Consultant / CEO @WORK BOLD

    ✅Did my post help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community bymarking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

    SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER

    Andrée Starå| Workflow Consultant / CEO @WORK BOLD

    W:www.workbold.com| E:[email protected]| P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35

    Feel free to contact me about help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or something else entirely.

  • Andrée Starå
    Andrée Starå ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    To add.

    If you haven't already, you could try to duplicate/clone the workflow and see if the new one works.

    Did that help?

    SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER

    Andrée Starå| Workflow Consultant / CEO @WORK BOLD

    W:www.workbold.com| E:[email protected]| P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35

    Feel free to contact me about help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or something else entirely.

  • Thanks. I did try cloning the workflow but it didn't work.

  • Andrée Starå
    Andrée Starå ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Happy to help!

    Strange!

    Let me know what you find out from support!

    SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER

    Andrée Starå| Workflow Consultant / CEO @WORK BOLD

    W:www.workbold.com| E:[email protected]| P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35

    Feel free to contact me about help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or something else entirely.

  • Chuck Rodgers
    Chuck Rodgers ✭✭✭✭

    I am experiencing something similar. Have an automation that is triggered at a date and time. It has worked twice and then has not worked even after cloning or recreating manually. Are there limits on rows in a request update automation workflow? Would something else be preventing it from running? This is very frustrating.

  • For me, it turned out to be an internal IT issue and not anything having to do with the workflow. An IT update blocked my automation emails from reaching the intended recipients. Once IT whitelisted Smartsheet the automated emails were allowed again.

  • Andrée Starå
    Andrée Starå ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    edited 05/22/20

    @Alejandra Orihuela

    Thanks for sharing!

    Glad you got it working again!

    Please help the Community by marking your postwiththe accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

    SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER

    Andrée Starå| Workflow Consultant / CEO @WORK BOLD

    W:www.workbold.com| E:[email protected]| P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35

    Feel free to contact me about help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or something else entirely.

  • Rob Kozak
    Rob Kozak
    edited 07/20/20

    I'm having the same issue....workflow automations setup in 2019. Recently, without changing anything, will some times fire, some times wont. Really not sure what to do.

    Anyone know if there are limitations on a sheet for number of update requests, or some limiting factor?

  • Andrea Westrich
    Andrea Westrich ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    @Rob Kozakdid you ever find out why this was happening?

  • Same issue for me. I duplicated the automation without changing it, then entered the same data in a new form (e.g. generated a new row with the same information that previously did not trigger automation). This resulted in...triggering the automation.

    That sounds like good news, but it isn't. It means that there is nothing wrong with the automation workflow, firewalls / Outlook, or (somehow) the data being entered or the form itself, but something actually the matter with SmartSheet. I now howtwo exact copiesof the same automation, but only one of them triggers. Luckily, I structured the system to have the automation sent to form author (me, usually, until the system can be trusted...) which gets final review before being sent to vendor. If the expectation was for the automation to trigger a message directly to the vendor, the whole thing would fail, since, as far as I am aware, recipients of automation emails cannot see each other (e.g. in "To" or "cc" lines).

    Some things to keep working of, for sure. Right now it's a bit house-of-cards-y.

    Would love feedback from SS as to reasoning.

I understand. Unfortunately, there is no other option that I see. One thing to make it easier for you to add the name is to have a helper column in the source sheet with a formula to identify duplicates. If there is a record with no duplicate (i.e., a new name added), you can get notified through a workflow and use that to add the name to your metric sheet.<\/p>"}]}},"status":{"statusID":3,"name":"Accepted","state":"closed","recordType":"discussion","recordSubType":"question"},"bookmarked":false,"unread":false,"category":{"categoryID":321,"name":"Smartsheet Basics","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/smartsheet-basics%2B","allowedDiscussionTypes":[]},"reactions":[{"tagID":3,"urlcode":"Promote","name":"Promote","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":5,"count":0},{"tagID":5,"urlcode":"Insightful","name":"Insightful","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":11,"urlcode":"Up","name":"Vote Up","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":13,"urlcode":"Awesome","name":"Awesome","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0}],"tags":[]},{"discussionID":106937,"type":"question","name":"Column shifting","excerpt":"Hi There, Currently, I have set up dynamic drop down in target sheet and the rule is the column index can not change (i.e. stay index 32) However, the column is shifting (i.e. from 32 to 57) but user claims they didn't move or change the column index. Is there any way we can figure out why this happening or any where we…","snippet":"Hi There, Currently, I have set up dynamic drop down in target sheet and the rule is the column index can not change (i.e. stay index 32) However, the column is shifting (i.e.…","categoryID":321,"dateInserted":"2023-06-27T07:31:13+00:00","dateUpdated":null,"dateLastComment":"2023-06-28T08:59:15+00:00","insertUserID":161133,"insertUser":{"userID":161133,"name":"Man Chui","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Man%20Chui","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/defaultavatar\/nWRMFRX6I99I6.jpg","dateLastActive":"2023-06-28T09:36:58+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭"},"updateUserID":null,"lastUserID":8888,"lastUser":{"userID":8888,"name":"Andrée Starå","title":"Smartsheet Expert Consultant & Partner | Workflow Consultant \/ CEO @ WORK BOLD","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Andr%C3%A9e%20Star%C3%A5","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/userpics\/0PAU3GBYQLBT\/nXWM7QXGD6464.jpg","dateLastActive":"2023-06-28T10:28:00+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭✭✭✭✭"},"pinned":false,"pinLocation":null,"closed":false,"sink":false,"countComments":3,"countViews":26,"score":null,"hot":3375795628,"url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/106937\/column-shifting","canonicalUrl":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/106937\/column-shifting","format":"Rich","lastPost":{"discussionID":106937,"commentID":382758,"name":"Re: Column shifting","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/comment\/382758#Comment_382758","dateInserted":"2023-06-28T08:59:15+00:00","insertUserID":8888,"insertUser":{"userID":8888,"name":"Andrée Starå","title":"Smartsheet Expert Consultant & Partner | Workflow Consultant \/ CEO @ WORK BOLD","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Andr%C3%A9e%20Star%C3%A5","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/userpics\/0PAU3GBYQLBT\/nXWM7QXGD6464.jpg","dateLastActive":"2023-06-28T10:28:00+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭✭✭✭✭"}},"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Home","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/"},{"name":"Using Smartsheet","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/using-smartsheet"},{"name":"Smartsheet Basics","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/smartsheet-basics%2B"}],"groupID":null,"statusID":3,"attributes":{"question":{"status":"accepted","dateAccepted":"2023-06-28T06:56:02+00:00","dateAnswered":"2023-06-27T12:25:56+00:00","acceptedAnswers":[{"commentID":382510,"body":"

This should be present from the activity log.<\/p>


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<\/p>"}]}},"status":{"statusID":3,"name":"Accepted","state":"closed","recordType":"discussion","recordSubType":"question"},"bookmarked":false,"unread":false,"category":{"categoryID":321,"name":"Smartsheet Basics","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/smartsheet-basics%2B","allowedDiscussionTypes":[]},"reactions":[{"tagID":3,"urlcode":"Promote","name":"Promote","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":5,"count":0},{"tagID":5,"urlcode":"Insightful","name":"Insightful","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":11,"urlcode":"Up","name":"Vote Up","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":13,"urlcode":"Awesome","name":"Awesome","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0}],"tags":[]},{"discussionID":106975,"type":"question","name":"Case sensitivity when using data mesh","excerpt":"I set up a Data Mesh that is working quite well. Nurses enter their credential information and we use DataMesh to add other human resources information of record - including manager's email. The DataMesh is keying of of the common field of User ID. We noticed that for many of the nurses the match didn't work and also…","snippet":"I set up a Data Mesh that is working quite well. Nurses enter their credential information and we use DataMesh to add other human resources information of record - including…","categoryID":343,"dateInserted":"2023-06-27T19:39:23+00:00","dateUpdated":null,"dateLastComment":"2023-06-27T20:09:03+00:00","insertUserID":114017,"insertUser":{"userID":114017,"name":"Jacqueline Ennis","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Jacqueline%20Ennis","photoUrl":"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/a\/AGNmyxZA0IOt6rrnETj3_ATzn0g7JjbJTEyOyIfrNKKb=s96-c","dateLastActive":"2023-06-27T20:08:06+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭"},"updateUserID":null,"lastUserID":114017,"lastUser":{"userID":114017,"name":"Jacqueline Ennis","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Jacqueline%20Ennis","photoUrl":"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/a\/AGNmyxZA0IOt6rrnETj3_ATzn0g7JjbJTEyOyIfrNKKb=s96-c","dateLastActive":"2023-06-27T20:08:06+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭"},"pinned":false,"pinLocation":null,"closed":false,"sink":false,"countComments":2,"countViews":24,"score":null,"hot":3375792506,"url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/106975\/case-sensitivity-when-using-data-mesh","canonicalUrl":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/106975\/case-sensitivity-when-using-data-mesh","format":"Rich","lastPost":{"discussionID":106975,"commentID":382691,"name":"Re: Case sensitivity when using data mesh","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/comment\/382691#Comment_382691","dateInserted":"2023-06-27T20:09:03+00:00","insertUserID":114017,"insertUser":{"userID":114017,"name":"Jacqueline Ennis","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Jacqueline%20Ennis","photoUrl":"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/a\/AGNmyxZA0IOt6rrnETj3_ATzn0g7JjbJTEyOyIfrNKKb=s96-c","dateLastActive":"2023-06-27T20:08:06+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭"}},"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Home","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/"},{"name":"Using Smartsheet","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/using-smartsheet"},{"name":"Add Ons and Integrations","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/apps-and-integrations"}],"groupID":null,"statusID":3,"attributes":{"question":{"status":"accepted","dateAccepted":"2023-06-27T20:09:23+00:00","dateAnswered":"2023-06-27T20:09:03+00:00","acceptedAnswers":[{"commentID":382691,"body":"

Perfect. Thank you so much!<\/p>"}]}},"status":{"statusID":3,"name":"Accepted","state":"closed","recordType":"discussion","recordSubType":"question"},"bookmarked":false,"unread":false,"category":{"categoryID":343,"name":"Add Ons and Integrations","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/apps-and-integrations","allowedDiscussionTypes":[]},"reactions":[{"tagID":3,"urlcode":"Promote","name":"Promote","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":5,"count":0},{"tagID":5,"urlcode":"Insightful","name":"Insightful","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":11,"urlcode":"Up","name":"Vote Up","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":13,"urlcode":"Awesome","name":"Awesome","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0}],"tags":[]}],"initialPaging":{"nextURL":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/api\/v2\/discussions?page=2&categoryID=341&includeChildCategories=1&type%5B0%5D=Question&excludeHiddenCategories=1&sort=-hot&limit=3&expand%5B0%5D=all&expand%5B1%5D=-body&expand%5B2%5D=insertUser&expand%5B3%5D=lastUser&status=accepted","prevURL":null,"currentPage":1,"total":5419,"limit":3},"title":"Trending in Using Smartsheet","subtitle":null,"description":null,"noCheckboxes":true,"containerOptions":[],"discussionOptions":[]}">

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