Expose the Last Row Comment

This Bridge workflow finds a row’s latest comment and brings that information into a cell in the same row in Smartsheet. This can be useful when you use Smartsheet to roll up the overall status of active projects or jobs and want to make sure you are always looking at the latest status left in a comment.

• Systems Used
  • Smartsheet
• Workflow Trigger:
  • Smartsheet - When Comments Are Added
• Templates Used:
  • Bridge Workflow - Expose Last Row Comment

Steps to complete:

1. Deploy the template.
2. Set up the workflow trigger.
3. Optional setup.

At the end of this article, you'll see an example sheet . Make sure that you have a text column titled Last Row Comment in your sheet, or you can follow the Optional Setup instructions to change which column the workflow updates. 

Deploy the template

1. In the Solution Center, find the template Expose Last Row Comment in the list and click it.
2. Give your workflow a name and click Deploy.

Your new workflow is now available in the list of workflows.

Set up the workflow trigger

1. Click on the Trigger element at the start of the workflow to reveal the trigger panel on the right side of the designer. 
2. Under the section Integration Triggers, click on the link to the Integrations Page.

This opens up a new tab.

1. Find the Smartsheet integration and click on the logo.
2. Once authenticated, click on the Triggers tab and expand the Triggers.
3. Then, click on Add to Triggers.

1. In the field Sheet ID field, enter the unique sheet ID. If you know the sheet name is unique then you can simply type in the name.
   
   NOTE: You can find the sheet ID by navigating to your sheet and selecting File > Properties.
    
2. Next, select the Event Type When Comments Are Added
3. Select the workflow that should be triggered in the dropdown.
4. Click Save and go back to the designer in the original tab.

Optional Setup

Set the comment column name

If you're not using the Smartsheet template, or you want to rename the comment column in the sheet you're using, set the name of the column that should receive the comment text in the workflow:

1. Click on the Update Row element in the workflow.
2. In the panel that appears, expand the Cells section. 
3. The Key #1 field is set to Last Row Comment by default. You can change this by typing in the name of the column that you want Bridge to expose the last comment in.
   NOTE: Make sure it is spelled exactly as in your sheet.
4. Save your workflow by clicking on the Save icon just above the panel.

To test the workflow, navigate to your sheet and enter a comment on any row of the sheet. The comment should now also appear in the specified column on the same row. 

You can also see the workflow trigger and the executed steps in the Run Log.

Reformat the posted last comment

In addition to simply copying the comment text into the row, the workflow also adds some information about the user who made the comment and the time they did so. If you don't want to show this information, or if you want to change it, click on the Compose Text module in the workflow. In the text field you can format what appears in the cell.

By default it references the comment text, the email of whoever made the comment, and the timestamp of when the comment was made. This data is brought into the workflow by the Get Comment module. If you run the workflow once, you can then copy references to any other information you would like to include via the Run Log module.

Change the date format in the posted comment

You can change the format of the timestamp by clicking on the Format Date/Time module.

Example Sheet

The below screen shot shows the sheet that was used when building this example. 

The column Last Row Comment is used in this workflow, so make sure you have a column with the same title in your sheet, too.