Prompt for user input with an automation?

1

Hello,

I have a table that my team uses for managing a pipeline of deals. One of the final pipeline stages is “pass” - e.g. we are not continuing to evaluate. This is a field where I would like to have more data on the rationale (say, for example, this opportunity comes up again far in the future and we forgot why we passed). I already have a column for text input called “reason for pass”, but it is not consistently used. What I am trying to create is a forcing function to enter the reason for the pass.

I know I can make an automation that looks for when the stage is changed to pass, but is there a way to then prompt the user to enter something in the “reason for pass” field?

Thanks!

2

The way we handle this is by using a button to trigger this final move.
This button uses an OpenRow() formula to open the same row but with a different view. This view contains nothing but the name of the row, a SECOND button (that also says Pass) and a “Reason” text field. The Second Button is disabled unless Reason has something in it. When Reason is filled out and the second Pass button is pressed, Only then is the row set to “Passed” and hidden from other views. That same button also closes the second view.

This is a workaround, but it does work!

1 Like
3

Yup! Second what @Billy_Jackson said

At SimplaDocs, when building for clients, we have seen a lot of success with a helper status column that actually enforces EVERY status change happen via a button

Essentially the flow is:

  • user selects new status in helper column
  • user pushes button to confirm selection
  • button changes real status column to reflect users choice

This brings some other benefits in that your buttons can also do things like:

  • log who changed the status and when to a helper logging table - which makes it REALLY easy to gather advanced metrics on projects and pipelines. This helps answer questions like
    • How long did this row stay in this status for?
    • where in the pipeline are deals getting stuck?
    • who changed this rows status to open and on what day?
  • From our users perspective they actually like the button press to confirm their status choice. It can feel more “official” in some ways.

Hope that helps!

2 Likes
4

This is perfect - thank you!

5

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.