Work with the Record a date action

Use the Record a date action to set the date when a workflow is triggered. 

Who can use this?

Plans:

  • Smartsheet
  • Pro
  • Business
  • Enterprise

Permissions:

  • Owner
  • Admin
     

Find out if this capability is included in Smartsheet Regions or Smartsheet Gov.

Try it with AI! Use an AI assistant with a prompt like When Status changes to Complete, record today's date in the Completed Date column. Refer to the Smartsheet MCP Prompt Library for more example prompts.

To record a date when a workflow triggers:

  1. Go to Automation > Create from template...
  2. In the Sheet change section, select Record the date when specified criteria are met > Use Template.
  3. Enter a name for your workflow. 
  4. Configure what triggers the workflow. 
  5. Select the date field where you want to record the date.
  6. Select Save. 

The Record a date action type only sets dates into date columns. A message appears if the sheet contains no date columns. 

Resource Management locks the date columns it uses to calculate start and end dates. Those columns aren’t available for the Record a date action. 

Keep the following in mind

  • The sheet owner’s personal account settings define the time zone of the date set.
  • If someone deletes or changes a Record a date workflow’s target date field to another column type, the workflow gets deactivated, and sheet admins receive an email notification.
  • In the cell history and activity log, you see the change attributed to Smartsheet Automation. 
  • Smartsheet doesn’t currently support relative dates (5 days from today, 3 days ago).
  • Record a date can’t set start and end dates, automatically calculated by predecessor or parent roll-up dependencies.
  • Each time a Record a date workflow triggers, it overwrites any previously recorded date value.
  • Update cell actions need time to update the sheet, especially if multiple workflows exist. 
  • The Record a date action is a terminal action, meaning no additional actions can be added to the workflow afterward.

To avoid creating endless loops, Smartsheet doesn't initiate the Record a date action when the trigger cell includes cross-sheet formulas or is linked to other cells. To work around this, use time-based automation or recurrence workflows.