Workflow Conundrum

[Chris_Jeal]

Hi Community,

I’m struggling here with a request from the team.

Basically, they want an email notification if an order start date/time has exceeded one hour.

The way I have gone about it is:

1. created a VC([Start duration]) with expression: now()-[start time]
2. created a VC ([Start trigger]) with expression: if([Start duration]>“001:00:00”,“trigger”,"")
3. added an action to update ([spreadsheet_column]) with text “trigger”
4. added an action using Data: execute an action on a set of rows selecting columns with the VC ([Start trigger]) and executing the above action
5. created a workflow to send the email notification where isnotblank([spreadsheet_column])

I thought that this would work but I’m not seeing any successful results.

Would there be anyone with any advice?

Thanks,
Chris.

[Marc_Dillon]

Workflows only run in response to some interaction from an app user. So what interaction will be happening where this 1-hour duration can be checked?

[Chris_Jeal]

There could be a number of columns being updated throughout as the order itself has a few columns that the users are updating but they’ll only be updating these after I need the workflow to trigger if the duration has already exceeded the 1 hour.

I thought that this could be a tricky one, I’m thinking of setting up reports if the rows meet this condition instead if the workflow is a no go.

[1minManager]

You could do this by creating a number of Reports to run at 0900, 1000, 1100 etc. Sadly there isn’t a check hourly button.

The other thing to check is that you can’t have a workflow which triggers an action which triggers a workflow. Since this could cause a loop. When I asked about this problem on here it was suggested that rather than having a workflow triggering an action, saving the record triggered it.

Not sure if this will help

[Chris_Jeal]

Thanks Simon,

I’ll test it or like you mention could create a ton of reports.

[1minManager]

Hi @Chris_Jeal

I only mention the loop (Workflow -> Action -> Workflow) issue because Appsheet won’t stop you creating this, or erroring. But the last Workflow will simply not trigger, which I think is the symptoms you have