approval automation sending multiple emails

Andrew1983
Andrew1983 ✭
inSmartsheet Basics

I have a smartsheet with a couple automation rules set up to email PM's about submittals. My "request an update" rule runs nicely and sends a single email to the PM with MULTIPLE requests when they click the form in the email.


However, my "request an approval" email sends a single email for EACH item to be approved, which is resulting in multiple emails that a PM has to click through - a real pain for the user.


Is it possible to have the "request an approval" automation rule send a single email with multiple approval requests in it?

The problem emails:


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the user has to click through on EACH email which is a huge pain in the butt:


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In my other rules that are "request an update" based, I get a nice single email which asks the viewer to go and update the fields. Is it possible to have this format of email come with an approval based rule?

I like the approval email because the user just clicks the button Needs changes/Sent for submittal instead of having to click the row and select the field. It's a small thing but we have a lot of submittals and I want to keep the PM's clicking to a minimum.

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  • Paul McGuinness
    Paul McGuinness ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓

    Hi

    As each approval is based of its own row, I don't believe its possible for a consolidated email to be sent.

    We overcame a similar issue by creating a separate report for each PM that would pull through rows that required their approval, they would receive a alert from the main project sheet when a new item required their approval using the standard 'Message Only' automation, which would include a link to the report in the text.

    Beauty of this is you can consolidate alerts not only by project but across multiple projects, assuming each project sheet has the same format you can pull approvals into one report from different projects.

    Hope this may be of help

    Paul McGuinness

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  • Paul McGuinness
    Paul McGuinness ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓

    Hi

    As each approval is based of its own row, I don't believe its possible for a consolidated email to be sent.

    We overcame a similar issue by creating a separate report for each PM that would pull through rows that required their approval, they would receive a alert from the main project sheet when a new item required their approval using the standard 'Message Only' automation, which would include a link to the report in the text.

    Beauty of this is you can consolidate alerts not only by project but across multiple projects, assuming each project sheet has the same format you can pull approvals into one report from different projects.

    Hope this may be of help

    Paul McGuinness

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  • Andrew1983
    Andrew1983 ✭

    @Paul McGuinness我们基本上是一个荣耀exc格式el right now, it is a single smartsheet that we are putting each projects submittals onto.


    I am looking at the reports and I would like to filter them by PM (i.e. PM "a" gets their own report, PM "b" gets their own report...)


    is there a way to do this using the filters or do I have to create a report for each PM...? I have at least 15 PM's so this is getting into a lot of reports.

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@PeggyLang<\/a> <\/p>

Happy to help!<\/p>

No, that should work as long as the sheet's permissions are okay.<\/p>

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As far as copying the rows to the secondary sheet, what I do is just hide the unnecessary columns. Other than that you can just have vlookup or index\/match formulas in the columns on the secondary sheet to pull data from the first sheet.<\/p>"},{"commentID":346950,"body":"

So when you hide the columns on the secondary sheet, they stay hidden even when new rows are coming over.<\/p>

I do this both ways depending on how much data we're talking about. If I only need like 2 columns of data, I'll use INDEX\/MATCH.<\/p>"}]}},"status":{"statusID":3,"name":"Accepted","state":"closed","recordType":"discussion","recordSubType":"question","log":{"dateUpdated":"2022-10-13 18:33:52","updateUser":{"userID":151182,"name":"ajuelsgaard","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/ajuelsgaard","photoUrl":"https:\/\/aws.smartsheet.com\/storageProxy\/image\/images\/u!1!jD9qI_ZEy_o!ZBFrGdYxZ3o!BxiboRPb0pq","dateLastActive":"2022-10-13T18:53:37+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭"}}},"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":[{"tagID":219,"urlcode":"Sheets","name":"Sheets"},{"tagID":334,"urlcode":"automations","name":"Automations"}]},{"discussionID":96475,"type":"question","name":"Connecting an Excel Sheet to a Smartsheet field?","excerpt":"Hello, Is there a way to create a drop-down field in a form, with values that come from an excel sheet? In other words, can you connect an excel sheet to a Smartsheet, and have dropdown values generated from that excel sheet? I need my users to be able to click on the drop-down field, start typing in a code, and have their…","categoryID":321,"dateInserted":"2022-10-11T22:22:14+00:00","dateUpdated":null,"dateLastComment":"2022-10-12T04:36:27+00:00","insertUserID":153427,"insertUser":{"userID":153427,"name":"cyarian","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/cyarian","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/defaultavatar\/nWRMFRX6I99I6.jpg","dateLastActive":"2022-10-12T15:45:16+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭"},"updateUserID":null,"lastUserID":116407,"lastUser":{"userID":116407,"name":"Darren Mullen","title":"","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Darren%20Mullen","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/userpics\/9WIC1TB7AJQT\/nP1GU5H4ITA1P.png","dateLastActive":"2022-10-13T22:58:51+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭✭✭✭"},"pinned":false,"pinLocation":null,"closed":false,"sink":false,"countComments":1,"countViews":39,"score":null,"hot":3331076921,"url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/96475\/connecting-an-excel-sheet-to-a-smartsheet-field","canonicalUrl":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/96475\/connecting-an-excel-sheet-to-a-smartsheet-field","format":"Rich","lastPost":{"discussionID":96475,"commentID":346859,"name":"Re: Connecting an Excel Sheet to a Smartsheet field?","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/comment\/346859#Comment_346859","dateInserted":"2022-10-12T04:36:27+00:00","insertUserID":116407,"insertUser":{"userID":116407,"name":"Darren Mullen","title":"","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Darren%20Mullen","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/userpics\/9WIC1TB7AJQT\/nP1GU5H4ITA1P.png","dateLastActive":"2022-10-13T22:58:51+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":"2022-10-12T14:21:29+00:00","dateAnswered":"2022-10-12T04:36:27+00:00","acceptedAnswers":[{"commentID":346859,"body":"

@cyarian<\/a> You would need to use Smartsheet's premium app Data Shuttle to do this.<\/p>"}]}},"status":{"statusID":3,"name":"Accepted","state":"closed","recordType":"discussion","recordSubType":"question","log":{"dateUpdated":"2022-10-12 14:21:29","updateUser":{"userID":153427,"name":"cyarian","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/cyarian","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6031209\/uploads\/defaultavatar\/nWRMFRX6I99I6.jpg","dateLastActive":"2022-10-12T15:45:16+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭"}}},"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":[]}],"title":"Trending in Using Smartsheet","subtitle":null,"description":null,"noCheckboxes":true,"containerOptions":[],"discussionOptions":[]}">