Need help with an automation rule that is not functioning as (i think) it should

I'm having an issue with a single automation rule not activating how it should. I have brought this issue to Wrike support several times and either I'm not communicating the issue correctly or I'm not understanding their instructions. So maybe another user can help me and, believe me when i say. I am doing my best to be as clear and precise as possible. So here it goes...

For reference, any listed item types will be in [] brackets. i.e {Folder] [Project] [Task]

Our projects are currently set up (for organizational purposes) with the following Hierarchy,

Client Folder [Folder] -> Project Name [Task CIT] -> Phase Folder [Task CIT] -> Phase Tasks [Task CIT]

The automations that I have written are as follows, from the bottom level Hierarchy to the top

Tasks: [Task]

When a preceding Task is marked as "complete" > change status to 'In Progress"

Phase Folders [Task CIT]

When all direct Subitems statuses change to 'Completed' or 'Not Applicable' > Change status to 'Completed' and 'Add comment and Mention'

When ANY direct Subitems statuses change to 'in Progress' > Change status to 'In Progress' This is the rule that does not activate (Note: Updated to correct typo that Jess Cudd pointed out)

Project Folders [Task CIT]

When any direct Subitems statuses change to 'All Active' > Change status to 'Design- Drawing'.

When all direct Subitems statuses change to 'Completed' or 'Not Applicable' > Change status to 'Completed' and 'Add comment and Mention'

In this example, the Automations have worked up to the point of 5. Client Approvals in the 01 Design Folder [Task CIT].

But now, when 5. Client Approvals status becomes 'Completed', 3 things are supposed to happen. (1) by order of the activating automations, 01 Design status changed to 'Completed', (2) 1. Acquisitions status becomes marked as 'In Progress'; and those two things do happen, and (3) 02 Build status becomes marked as 'In progress'; This is where the problem occurs because that does not happen (As shown in the next image), nor does it happen for 03 Install.

I have noticed that the Automation WILL work if i manually change the status for 1. Acquisitions to 'new' then back to 'In Progress', however, this defeats the purpose of the automations, IMO. So hopefully someone out here has some good insight and advice because I have tried these automations every different way I can possible thing of, as well as trying to apply them to every combination of Item Type and Custom Item Type I can think of and nothing works. Am i trying to do something that is straight up not possible or is there a rule that is overriding what i want to happen? I'm super stumped and been working on this for a week straight now (4-5 hours) each day. Help.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Jess Cuddy

Hi @Shawn Hood!

It looks like your automation rule applied to "Task CIT" in 'Phase Folder' is referencing the incorrect action.

In your description you specified that when all direct subitems change to 'In Progress' > Change status to 'In Progress'.

However, the action is built so that when any direct subitems change to 'In Progress' the automation will activate.

Hopefully if you adjust the action to reflect when all subitems' statuses change, it should resolve your issue

Shawn Hood

@Jess Cuddy Hi Jess. Thanks for your response. That was my typo when writing the post. The rule as pictured, is what i'm trying to get to function. I have edited the post to reflect the correction. The automation i want is when a direct subitem in a Phase Folder [CIT] becomes marked as 'In Progress', I want the Phase folder itself to be marked as 'in progress' as well.

Jess Cuddy

Hi @Shawn Hood, ah I see! That makes sense.

Does the "Phase Folder [CIT]" Item Type = Folder? Because I don't think you can assign a status to a folder in Wrike, which may be the cause of the issue.

(See: /hc/en-us/community/posts/360014267234-Folder-status-to-be-an-editable-field-which-mirrors-the-chosen-Task-Workflow)

(and see below)

If it is not, then I'm not sure sorry, I tried to replicate your settings in my environment but had no luck!

Shawn Hood

@Jess Cuddy Hi Jess. No. Phase Folder [CIT] is actually a task, I just designated it as a folder for organization as well as having the ability to mark the 'folder' with various statuses. Yeah, this has really had me stumped. I've reached out to Customer Support multiple times over the past 2 weeks about this but keep hitting a dead end

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hey @Shawn Hood, thank you for posting your question on automations here in the forums. I'd suggest creating a Support ticket for you, but I can see there are some tickets already open, our team will investigate it and will get back to you shortly 👍

Jess Cuddy

@Shawn Hood yeah wow it really has me stumped too. My last thought is is there another automation rule you have applied to the same task/location that could be conflicting? I noticed a few issues with conflicting automation rules in our company which I logged some product feedback for.

Other than that best of luck with it, sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Marina Conover

Hi Shawn, this might be off-base and a kind of convoluted answer, but I'm thinking this might have to do with predecessors and the fact that an automation cannot trigger another automation. You don't share how your predecessors are set up, but based on how you describe which automations do work, I'm going to make some guesses that I think would explain the results you are getting.

But now, when 5. Client Approvals status becomes 'Completed', 3 things are supposed to happen. (1) by order of the activating automations, 01 Design status changed to 'Completed', (2) 1. Acquisitions status becomes marked as 'In Progress'; and those two things do happen, and (3) 02 Build status becomes marked as 'In progress'; This is where the problem occurs because that does not happen (As shown in the next image), nor does it happen for 03 Install.

I'm thinking that your 5. Client Approvals Phase Task is set up with the 01 Design Phase Folder as its predecessor. This is why step (1) is working, using your rule "PHASE FOLDER - Mark as 'complete' and alert Assignee when tasks are completed."

For step (2), and this is the key bit, I'm guessing that your 1. Acquisitions Phase Task is set with 5. Client Approvals as a predecessor. That's why the automation will trigger when you set the 5. Client Approvals Phase Task to Completed, using your rule "TASK - Change status to in Progress when previous task is completed."

Step (3) then doesn't happen, because an action performed by an automation will not trigger another automation. That's why you see the 02 Build Phase Folder automatically change when you manually set the 1. Acquisitions Phase Task to be In Progress, but not when you set 5. Client Approvals to Completed.

Of course, like I said, this is all supposition on my part based on how the automations are behaving. If you share with us those predecessors, that would probably help to diagnose the problem! If this is the issue, you might need to tweak your predecessors so you can get all of the things that you want to have happen based a single triggering action.

Shawn Hood

@Marina Conover

an automation cannot trigger another automation.

This. Right here. If I missed this in the documentation or the training, then that is 110% my bad. If this is a solid fact, then that is clearly the reason why this is not working, because all my currently working automations trigger with manual user input, but the one that isn't working was supposed to be triggered off of the effect of another automation. Thank you so much. I have been hyper fixated on this for the past 3 weeks and i really with the Wrike customer Support and advanced team would have said something about this one of the many times i was in communications with them about this.

Marina Conover

@Shawn Hood
^^On this page of Wrike Help

Unless this is a piece of outdated information (given all the very cool updates they keep making to automations), then yes, it's a hard and fast rule that automations won't trigger other automations.

It's a situation that has caused me to have to come up with some tricky workarounds - usually, like I said, through very specific predecessors. We have tasks that are tied to each other simply because we want automations to work between them and not because of the timing needing to be specific. In this case, if you set 5. Client Approvals as a predecessor to 02 Build, and 3. Paint as a predecessor to 03 Install and etc, you'd be able to get the Phase Folders to change to In Progress as well as the Phase Tasks from one single action, but using two different rules.

I'm happy if I was able to help! Good luck getting your system to work how you want it to!