Question about how Workflows operate

Arizno
Participant III

I have a workflow that I want to use to send out an SMS reminder to a Task owner to remind him that there is a task that is due. It looks like this:

AND([Completed?]=FALSE,[Due Date]=TODAY())

My question is this, since the Workflow trigger expression that I have states that the [Completed?] column must be FALSE AND [Due Date] is equal to Today, as long as Completed is left blank will that Workflow trigger on its own once that Due Date becomes today ?

Or does this need to exist in the Reports and not Workflows?

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You are correct you will need to set this as a Report instead of a workflow. Workflows are for when data changes and reports are for scheduled runs. In your case it seems like you want a scheduled report that runs once a day.

In addition, if [Completed?] is set to blank you should also add the condition isblank([Completed?]) too since a blank value is not false but rather empty.

So your expression would look like this:

AND(or(isblank([Completed?]),[Completed?]=FALSE),[Due Date]=TODAY())

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You are correct you will need to set this as a Report instead of a workflow. Workflows are for when data changes and reports are for scheduled runs. In your case it seems like you want a scheduled report that runs once a day.

In addition, if [Completed?] is set to blank you should also add the condition isblank([Completed?]) too since a blank value is not false but rather empty.

So your expression would look like this:

AND(or(isblank([Completed?]),[Completed?]=FALSE),[Due Date]=TODAY())

Thank you for breaking it down. And also for the extra little tid-bit. Much appreciate it.

I actually came across another question upon doing the report.

Since the SMS can be many rows of data, how would I be receiving the text. Would it be one for every row that qualifies? Or all combined into one?

Hi David,

If you are sending the SMS message using the AppSheet account, we limit you to a text message length of 160 characters. If you are using your own account, your SMS message can be up to 1600 characters in length. In either case, SMS is not great if you are trying to send lots of data. Sending a row in each SMS also seems pretty unwieldy.

You might be better off sending an email because the size of the email body or attachment can be much longer.

Another approach would be to send an SMS that simple contains a link back to a view in your AppSheet app that contains the information you want the user to see. That might also make it easier for the user to take the appropriate action.

I see what you you mean with it becoming unwieldy. However for this basic To Do app it would work find because at most it would be 2-4 task each day. However I appreciate the input as in other situations this may be the case.

Thanks you as well for the insight on how to better apply this method. Did not even think of sending them the link. I like that method.

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