Applies to
- Pro
- Business
- Enterprise
Capabilities
Who can use this capability
You must be a licensed Owner, Admin, or Editor-level permission on the sheet to create workflows.
Users with Editor-level permissions can only create, edit, or delete alerts or reminders with themselves as the recipient.
Learn about workflow permissions.
Action blocks: Specify what automation is triggered
Choose what type of automation your workflow performs when triggered, with an action block.
With an action block, you choose what type of alert, request, or other automation your workflow performs when triggered. If you want to change the action you selected, in the upper-right corner of the block, select the Menu icon.
There are four types of workflow, and each type has different action types for it. Use the following tables as references for the workflow action types.
Notification action types
| Use this type of alert or action | In this situation | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Alert someone |
|
You created a workflow to receive alerts when a Status field is set to Blocked. |
| Alert a Microsoft Teams channel |
|
You created a workflow to send alerts to your team’s Microsoft Teams channel when a new form entry is added to your sheet. |
| Alert a Slack channel |
|
You created a workflow to send alerts to your team’s Slack channel when a task is tagged as Urgent. |
Update and approval requests action types
| Use this type of alert or action | In this situation | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Update request |
|
Your manager created a workflow to request the task assignees to update the Start Date column when the status on a row changes to In Progress. |
| Approval request |
|
You created a workflow to ask the content reviewer to approve or decline the draft when a draft is tagged as Complete. The marketing team created a workflow to ask the finance team to review, and approve or decline the request when a work item’s cost exceeds the projected amount. |
Sheet changes action types
| Use this type of alert or action | In this situation | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Assign people | Assign one or more persons to a work item when a date is reached or when a row is added or changed. | You created a workflow to assign tasks to the escalation team when a work item is tagged as Urgent. |
| Change cell value | Change data in these columns when certain conditions are met:
|
You set the sheet to select the Complete checkbox column when a user sets the Approval Status column to Approved. |
| Record a date | Record the current date in your chosen field when a workflow is triggered. | You set the sheet to record the current date when a task is marked as Complete. |
| Clear cell value | Remove the contents in a field when certain conditions are met. | You created a workflow to help you remove contents. |
| Lock rows | Prevent further edits after an item has been approved or completed, or a particular point in time. | You set the sheet to lock a row when the value in the Review Status column is set to In progress. |
| Unlock rows | Allow users to edit rows only when prerequisite steps are completed. | You set the sheet to unlock a row when the value in the Review Status column is set to Complete. |
Sheet-to-sheet workflows action types
| Use this type of alert or action |
In this situation |
Example(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Move rows |
|
The e-learning team created a workflow to remove requests that shouldn’t be on their team’s intake sheet. If they receive requests for the marketing team, the workflow moves the task to that department’s intake sheet. |
| Copy rows |
|
You have a sheet where all the completed tasks are recorded. To reduce manual work, you created a workflow to copy rows to that sheet when rows in your parent file are tagged as Complete. |
To prevent infinite approval loops, cells which contain cross-sheet formulas or cell links don't trigger an automation which automatically changes the sheet (Move Row, Copy Row, Lock Row, Unlock Row, Approval Request). To work around this, use time-based automation or recurrence workflows.
Select your recipients
Configure the action block to ensure alerts and requests are sent to people who are involved with a specific work item. You can configure them to be sent out to:
- People in a contact field for that row (for example: the assignee)
- Everyone shared to the sheet
- People you manually specify
- Members of a channel in a third-party app such as Slack or Microsoft Teams
Modify field visibility and create a custom message
You can customize the alert message so the recipients get only the information they need to know. In the Customize message section, you can control which fields appear, and edit the subject and message.
Request approvals in sequence
If you want to request approval from stakeholders and set up actions sent in sequence rather than all at once, you can set up multiple Approval Requests in a single path. Approval Requests pause the workflow until they are Approved or Declined. Once the Approval status is updated, the workflow continues through subsequent conditions and actions on the path defined by the outcome of the Approval Request.
Actions connected to the outcome of an Approval Request are executed by the Approval Request status entering Approved or Declined and don't take into account any of the conditions defined before the Approval Request. Since the workflow trigger and subsequent condition blocks between the trigger and the Approval Request can be bypassed if someone manually changes the approval status column in the sheet, it is best practice to either lock your Approval status columns in the source sheet, or refrain from sharing the sheet to people that you need approval from.
I didn't receive the alerts I set up for myself
Your sheet notifications might be off. To fix this, turn on the notifications for sheet changes. Not sure how to do it? Read the Trigger Automated Workflows on the Changes You Make article.