Notify an assignee that the predecessor has complete his task.

Alexander Wirtz

I want to use smartsheet as an international project management tool. One thing is driving me creasy.

I want to send out a notification to an assignee if the predecessor task is completed. Please find attached a screenshot of my scenario.

The task in row 27 needs row 25 & 26 to be done ( active checkbox in column "done"). If the assigned person of task 25 & 26 marks their tasks as done, the assigned person of task 27 should know that he can start. Via e-mail notification.

This should be a standard scenario that a lot of people have. I couldn't find any good solution in several threads. E.g.:

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/notify-assignee-predecessor-required-start-work-has-been-completed

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/notify-dependent-task-assignee-predecessor-task-has-been-completed

Is there a new future that I am missing?

The problem always seems to be that the assignee is in another row. You can't make notification rules over different rows. It needs to be something like: If "done" is "checked" notify "assigned to" of the assigned task(s).

I tried to add a column that would give me the name of the assignee but it didn't work out well. I want to avoid typing in the assignee manually for every task.

My user group is not that familiar with tables in general. So I want to avoid doing too much organizational.

I would appreciate any support I can get.

Regards

Alex

Craig Moss

Here is how I have approached this. I'll try to adapt it to your scenario.

Add checkbox columns [Prereq Task 1] - [Prereq Task 2].

On row 27, enter the formula =Done25 in [Prereq Task 1]. Enter the formula =Done26 in [Prereq Task 2].

Add a checkbox column [Actionable]. On row 27, enter the formula =AND([Prereq Task 1],[Prereq Task 2])

Now, Actionable27 will be checked when the two prerequisite tasks on rows 25 and 26 are Done. You can use this in the conditions to trigger your Alert.

Hope it helps...

Paul Newcome

Unfortunately you have run into a block that has caused much frustration and very minimal "solutions". A lot of tedious and manual work is generally the "solution" to this issue involving manually adjusting formulas for each specific rows. Feel free to submit an enhancement request though as this is DEFINITELY a feature worth having and is in high demand.

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/739aa75f30ca43a8a22eb53e4da7d409?_ga=2.88241375.555919786.1553514900-1302373248.1552411124

nate103946

@alexander, were you able to identify a workaround for this?

Brett Shapiro

I have this same issue. Just started using Smartsheet and am honestly surprised this is not a current feature. I found threads bating back to 2016 requesting this capability.

This seems fundamentally basic to me, IE: I have a task, when it's marked complete, notify the assigned to of any task that is linked back to the task as a predecessor.

jwilson10533

My temporary solution is to great a new column called "Inform" (from the RACI framework) of type Contact List and I manually configure those that need notification which more or less mirrors the assigned users to the downstream tasks. If my template is reasonably reliable, then for each instance I create there is minimal downstream modification upon creation.

Tori Isbell

I'm having the same problem and would love to see something to resolve this in an upgrade.

DonaraJaghinyan

has there been a workaround found for this scenario?

Genevieve P.

Hi@DonaraJaghinyan

Since this post, there has been a release of a new formula Function called SUCCESSORS. There are some other threads in the Community that discuss how to use this function to find out if a next task is ready to go.

For example, this testing post which may have some solutions for you:

I have seen in the past quite a few people asking how we can leverage predecessors for alerts so that when (for example) the preceding task is complete, a notification goes out automatically to the owner of the next task letting them know it is ready to start. The best approach to this was unfortunately parsing out the predecessors across multiple columns (if you had multiple predecessors).<\/p>

I have been playing with the new SUCCESSORS function, and think I have almost found a way (with certain limitations). The limitations with this would be if you specified "SS", "SF", "FS", or "FF". I think I have some ideas on how to accommodate that but want to do some more testing before putting it out here for everyone.<\/p>

In the mean time... Please feel free to take a look at the below to get started . I also welcome feedback and ideas on how to adjust for the other variables such as lag\/lead time, "SS"\/"SF"\/etc., and any other "catch" people can think of.<\/p>

First we insert an Auto-number column with no special formatting (called "Auto").<\/p>

Next we insert a text\/number column (called "Row") and use the following column formula:<\/p>

=MATCH(Auto@row, Auto:Auto, 0)<\/p>

Then we insert a multi-select dropdown column (called "Next Tasks") and used this column formula:<\/p>

=JOIN(SUCCESSORS([Task Name]@row), CHAR(10))<\/p>

From here we you can start to deviate and adjust as needed, but the below formula (put into another text\/number column) will grab the % Complete for the previous tasks, add them up, then compare it to how many previous tasks there are. If those two numbers match, then the task on this row is ready to start.<\/p>

=IF(AND(Predecessors@row <> "", [% Complete]@row = 0, SUMIFS([% Complete]:[% Complete], [Next Tasks]:[Next Tasks], HAS(@cell, Row@row + "")) = COUNTIFS([Next Tasks]:[Next Tasks], HAS(@cell, Row@row + ""))), 1)<\/p>

.<\/p>

In the below screenshot, you will see that Row 5 is ready to start because its predecessor (row 4) is at 100% complete, and row 5 has not yet been started. Row 9 is not yet ready because it needs both rows 7 & 8 to be completed first and 8 is only at 50%. You will also see that Row 8 is not marked as ready to start because even though its predecessor is completed, the task on Row 8 has already ben started (% Complete greater than zero).<\/p>

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Cheers,

Genevieve

DonaraJaghinyan

Thank you Genevieve, you shared such a helpful thread with me.

I asked my question in the other thread.