Access field values within automation

Several times we've wanted to create an automation rule that takes the value of a system or custom field and uses it to help build the value of another, or a comment.

For example, if the field values could be referred to using substitution tags you could build a comment like,

"This task was assigned to [[assignees]] with a priority of [[custom field:priority]] and a due date of [[due date]]."

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Comments

Juan Muttoni

Hi Ben Gladwyn, thank you for sharing your use case with us. Do I understand correctly that the "Custom field changes" trigger does not meet your needs?

You can use this trigger to active a rule when a specific value is added/changed in the relevant custom field:

Looking forward to your reply!

Ben Gladwyn

Hi Juan, thanks for having a look at this for me.

I don't think "Custom field changes" helps in this situation. That is very useful and allows automation rules to fire when the value of a custom field changes.

What I'm suggesting is being able to use the values within fields, be they default or custom, in the action taken. Currently the only suggestion I've seen to address this is by having a different rule for each anticipated field value. This doesn't make sense if you don't know what the value will be, or would like to use more than one value in the action.

Juan Muttoni

I understand your case better now, @Ben Gladwyn, thank you for the additional details. I've passed your feedback on to our Product Team 👍

Ben Gladwyn

Many thanks Juan!

Beth Wray

I have a project number custom field. Once it is populated by finance, I would like to send a comment with the message "Project number (Custom field value) has been assigned."

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Beth Wray, thanks for reaching out!

The use case you're describing is possible with our automation! First, you'll need to set up a trigger "When field changes" (it will also work if a value is added):

After that, you can add an action "Add comment or mention" and choose who you'd like to mention:

I hope this helps 🙂

Beth Wray

Thanks Lisa. I would like the value of the custom field to be displayed in the comment. I believe Ben Gladwyn referred to this as well.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Got you, thank you for clarifying @Beth Wray!

Ryan Montgomery

We have the same request. Being able to use the Items field values as variables would open up many possibilities for dynamic automations. One example is duplicating an item and keeping the name of the original item but adding a prefix. This is currently only possible by "hard coding" the name into the automation, which makes it completely untenable for us.

Juan Muttoni

Hi @Ryan Montgomery, welcome to the Community! Thank you for your detailed feedback and for sharing your use case with us. I've passed your comment on to our Product Team 👍

Please, feel free to check our New to Community forum to discover all the resources you can find in our Community 🙂

Leslie Horn

We have the same need.

Our warehouse team provides tracking numbers in a custom field. Once that is populated and the status changes to Shipped we'd like to automate a message to Slack that includes the tracking number. For example: "Project X status has changed to Shipped with tracking number(s): [custom field: tracking number]"

Because these hardware requests come in via a request form, it would be an added bonus if we could email the requester with this information rather than Slack.

Lauren Parkes

Another upvote from me - not for the first time, I have a use case that could easily be solved by, for example, incorporating a custom field value in a comment (or alike) by inserting the merge syntax i.e.{{CustomItemID.CustomFieldID}}

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thanks folks! Please don't forget to also upvote the original post by Ben if you haven't yet 👍

Jon Swanson

Bringing this another use case. I would like to have the Custom Field I created "Comments" be able to have its contents sent in an automated Slack message. This is primarily used to communicate to users outside of Wrike so they can see comments have changed without accessing the Public Link that has been given. Simply one less click or three for them to see what has changed/updated.

Rohan V

Thanks, @Jon Swanson, for sharing your use case. We’ll forward your comment to the relevant Product Team for their visibility. If there’s any update in the future regarding this, we’ll be sure to notify you.

Larry Bell

Access to field values in automation would likely solve a lot of use cases for me. This could also potentially address the issue of last comment displayed in a custom field which I am also following.

Rohan V

Thank you, @Larry Bell, for sharing your feedback 🙏 We’ll keep you updated on any future developments.