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Request: "Is Not" / Exclude Functionality in Automation Conditions

Jennifer Simpson

Automation conditions only allow you to select what is there, but they should allow you to exclude as well. There are a million use cases for this.

For instance, if certain people are assigned to a task, then other automations do not need to kick off. Condition: Assignee "Is Not" [Name].

Or, if I create a task today that's due later this week, I may not need certain automations to kick off. Condition: Due Date "Is Not" [This Week].

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Comments

Carmine Tanya

@Jennifer Simpson Thanks for the suggestion, that’s helpful context. Could you share a quick example of how you’d like this to work in your workflow? Once I’ve got a bit more detail, I can check if there are any possible workarounds.

Jennifer Simpson

Thank you. As noted in the original post, the context is:

"For instance, if certain people are assigned to a task, then other automations do not need to kick off. Condition: Assignee "Is Not" [Name].

Or, if I create a task today that's due later this week, I may not need certain automations to kick off. Condition: Due Date "Is Not" [This Week]."

I break down my current setup on this post:

https://community.wrike.com/discussion/2952/request-duration-as-an-automation-condition

To elaborate:

"if certain people are assigned to a task, then other automations do not need to kick off." Examples:

If I'm still assigned to a task because I "own it" but a supervisor or vendor is also assigned to it, it means I'm waiting on the the other person's feedback. I'm still responsible for the outcome, but I would like to suppress reminders when that person is on a task with me. That person may come and go on the task, so I don't want to remove all reminders, only suppress reminders when that person is scheduled with me. An "Assignee is Not [User]" condition would be great here.
I want to deploy global reminders that apply to all execution-facing users. One that I do not have to manually add users to every time the team changes. But leadership does not need reminders. I cannot create a global reminder until I have a way to exclude leadership reliably.

"Or, if I create a task today that's due later this week, I may not need certain automations to kick off. Condition: Due Date "Is Not" [This Week]."

This is self-explanatory and ties to my other post. If a task is assigned to me that's due anytime this week, I don't need a reminder that it's due in two days. I either just scheduled it for myself or got a notification that it was scheduled for me. These kinds of tasks are often 2 days in duration, so my 2-day reminder kicks off the moment a task is assigned to me. But even if it's due later in the week, I still don't need reminders that close together. Hence:
- Automation = "Check 2-day reminder box IF task is NOT due this week and the user is me."

That being said, "Is not" logic is fairly standard in most automation tools. I actually don't think I've ever seen a tool that does not have it. I'm sure there are thousands of use cases for this feature.

Jennifer Simpson

I replied to the post, not you. Sorry about that. Please see my response below.
https://community.wrike.com/discussion/comment/39977?utm_source=community-share#Comment_39977

Daisy Hibbard

Use case on our end: I want to set up an automation that notifies authors of IT requests when their task is completed in a sprint. However, several of us on the team create sprint tickets, so I need an option to say, "Author is not _____." Ideally I could set up a user group for the team and just use that instead of individual names.

I could set this up today if the "is not" function was available.

Probably unrelated, but a pain point I hit with this automation idea is that I have to set up a separate automation for every custom item type. We have three main task types in our sprint. I wish I could just set up ONE automation and add all of the custom item types it should apply to.