Reports are running more than once

Tiger1 · 04-26-2022 07:31 AM

Why are some of my reports running multiple times?

I have several reports that send out emails to clients. We get 4 emails sometimes for the same report. This one is set up to send out an email daily(weekly) at 9 AM CST. Yet I get 4 emails. Why?

1minManager

Are you using multiple emails in teh To, CC & BCC boxes?

Tiger1

Yes:

1minManager

Try reducing to 1 email address and see if this solves issue

Tiger1

ok. Is this a bug? Or is that what we have to to do?

1minManager

Did doing that test fix the duplicate issue?

Tiger1

No. In fact now it sent 3 emails to only one recipient. AND it kept the old recipients and sent 3 emails as well? So I got 6 emails this time?

1minManager

In the email To/Cc/BCC box are use using "me@email.com" or some formula?

Tiger1

me@email.com for each one

Steve

Are you sure you don't have three different bots all doing the same thing?

Tiger1

Yes. Here are the bots and the corresponding email templates:

Here is one email template - location 31:

1minManager

Right the template has no bearing whatsoever

Disable all bots apart from one to see if that fixes it. I think @Steve is looking right. I suspect you have multple bots triggering. You can check this by going into a box and selecting monitor and have a look if they all trigger together

SkrOYC

For reference:
AppSheet Monitor

Tiger1

I found this for one location - 31?

Tiger1

I also checked - "trigger other bots" - it looks right to me:

Tiger1

I did find this....

If I look at monitor - it shows the same location process twice - 3 min apart?

Tiger1

Ok. I am now looking at my tasks. This looks weird to me:

SkrOYC

Task at the bottom are not associated with any table, that's why it says "Other".

Maybe you changed your tables recently

Tiger1

I never touched them - for about 6 months?

Tiger1

I cleaned up the tasks:

However, I noticed under - Process, Events and Bots - "other" is there as well?

But when I click on them - it shows - "table" = Geoforce - which is correct...

SkrOYC

I understand that it's confusing.

Try to read about each of the parts around automation:

Bots: The Essentials | AppSheet Help Center

Process: The Essentials | AppSheet Help Center

Event: The Essentials | AppSheet Help Center

Step: The Essentials | AppSheet Help Center

Task: The Essentials | AppSheet Help Center

Anyway, your process has no table.

But as far as I know it doesn't need it because those are scheduled reports.

Again, be careful before changing anything

Tiger1

Yeah. Since they are all "scheduled" - None is I guess the required entry. I will see if this all works now.

Thanks

Tiger1

Ok. It seems to have cut it down from 4 emails to 2?

But why two?

SkrOYC

Are you sure that the emails aren't duplicated on to, CC, BCC?

I don't know if that could be related but maybe..

Tiger1

Yeah - see below. This is one of the bots:

Tiger1

Here are the bots - snapshots:

SkrOYC

Btw, this is a bot that should trigger for different locations?

Have you tried by making just 1 BOT and then branch on conditions to select which task should be executed?

Tiger1

This is 5 different bots. They basically do the same thing. Except each bot calls a slightly different email template. In the templates I specify the location. I have not tried cutting back to just one.

Tiger1

Can we use multiple bots per app? Again, this is 5 bots for one app. They are basically doing the same thing. However, each calls a different email template. So they are 5 different bots. Is this not ok to do?

Ryan_Mortimer

I think the question is this not okay to do is very subjective and should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

What is efficient or easy to process for individuals may or may not be the best way to “program” a task in terms of platform (for a lot of different reasons such as speed, sync times, data integrity, etc.)

The question we should all ask ourselves is “Is there a better way to do this”.

Even without knowing the differences in your templates, I strongly would advise getting as close to one automation/bot as possible. You can achieve this with conditions, “dynamic” expressions and even third party integrations!

Tiger1

I do not know how to write an expression to choose which email to send per [location_code] using one bot.

SkrOYC

You can make one bot that triggers at 09:00 am.

Then you can have a step that branches on a condition to decide if a task should be executed and a step to a task if that condition is yes or no.

Then you can have multiple of the above step pairs as needed.

I have one bot that sends a certain generated pdf to different emails and create 4 emails in the process to different people that shouldn't know about each other's emails

Tiger1

Ok. I see what you are talking about. However, I can't make a condition because it is not looking at a table - its a scheduled event:

Phil

What do you see when you look in Audit History?
https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/5317105-troubleshooting-emails
The Audit History is almost always the first place to look when trying to diagnose workflow emails.

Tiger1

It shows each bot twice:

Phil

Audit History shows each scheduled bot running once. There are two audit records because the first reflects the start and the second reflects the finish of the bot.

Tiger1

so technically its right? Why do i get multiple emails PER bot?

Phil

The Audit History lists the people who will receive the email in the audit record.
What does it contain?

Tiger1

It shows each bot - twice. One per process then one per task. But it ONLY shows my email under users (I blacked them out)?

Tiger1

Something I am noticing, I have a process emailing and the task? Is that right?

Process:

Task: