Workflow with report by last entry

[Jonathan_S]

Hey everyone,

I need to fire a workflow event which will email a formatted pdf whenever a row is added

What Im wondering is, what type of slice would I used to make sure I only have that row that fired this workflow? The reason Im asking is what if 2 entries are added within like 5 seconds of each other, I cant have the 1 workflow start using info form the second workflow,

What Is standard procedure for this? Im assuming this is a fairly common thing being done.

[MultiTech · Accepted solution]

My solution is to literally include a column in tables that I know will have workflows called: Workflow_Trigger; a simple text field that’s hidden.

Setup is as follows:

• I set my workflow to watch this column for a trigger
• I create an action to insert my trigger word into the workflow_trigger column
• I create an action to clear the workflow_trigger column

Then, I use the form event (or an action event) with a grouped action to run these two back to back; when the trigger value is entered, the workflow fires, then the next edit is to clear the workflow trigger - and things move on to any additional syncs.

[Jonathan_S]

Perfect, thanks.

[Jonathan_S]

Ok, So I’m having trouble trying to get only the row that is complete to go into my workflow.
[complete] = “true”

what if a user selects multiple entries to be complete as well? before the first workflow is finished a second one is started?

[Phil]

Hi Jonathan,

I am confused. You wrote:

“I need to fire a workflow event which will email a formatted pdf whenever a row is added
What Im wondering is, what type of slice would I used to make sure I only have that row that fired this workflow?”

You can define a workflow rule that is triggered by the Add row request.
When that workflow rule is triggered, it automatically refers to the newly added row.
In the attachment workflow template you can simply refer to the fields of the newly added record.
The values from those fields will appear in the resulting PDF file.

[Jonathan_S]

Sorry Phil,

Not sure what Im on,

What I meant was
Whenever the column [complete] is set to “TRUE” this is done via an action from the user.
I need to take that row and create a report. but only that row.

Also what if multiple rows are marked complete by the user within a small timeframe?

[Phil]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the clarification.

The same principle applies to an Update.
Your action sets the value of a field in a specific row.
I presume that the updated row is saved to the server thereafter.
You define a workflow rule that is triggered by an Update to that table.
That workflow rule is automatically refers to the updated row.
You can add a Condition to the workflow rule so the workflow action is only performed if the field in the updated record contains the value you expect.
In the attachment workflow template you can simply refer to the fields of the updated record.
The values from those fields will appear in the resulting PDF file.

If you update three records, the workflow rule is invoked three times.
Once for each record your user updated.
In each case the workflow rule is referring to the specific row that triggered the workflow rule.

[Jonathan_S]

Perfect, That clarifies some of my uncertainties. So pretty much everything is already built into it.

Thank you.

[Phil]

Exactly.

If you need to check the value of the updated field see https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/2792618-before-and-after-values

[Jonathan_S]

I have this set as my condition [complete]="true" would somthing simple like this not work or cause future headaches?

Also for the template itself, do I still start it the traditional way? <<Start:Todays Data [ID]>>
or this is no longer necessary as only the single row of data is passed? Child Tables etc would be passed along with this im assuming. Just want to be absolutely clear before I dive deep and your available right now

[Phil]

The condition looks fine.

You don’t need a <<Start>> if you are only listing the updated record.
That record is already present.

You only need a <<Start>> if you want to loop through a set of records.
That does not seem necessary in your case.

[Jonathan_S]

Thanks