Adding "IfBlank" condition to setting date values

Feature requests
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NEED SUMMARY
Currently, in an automation we can set the value of a date column to today. We need to be able to set that column ONLY if it is blank, otherwise leave it alone.

PROPOSED SOLUTION
Enhance automations that set values to support a new flag “Only If Blank”

SAMPLE USEFULNESS
When we move an item to the active sprint, we want to record the date it was moved there. If it gets bumped into the next sprint, our is set so when the status changes to “Next Sprint”, the item moves to the new top group [active sprint], and increases a “# of active Sprints” counter so we keep track of how many times it got bumped. That same automation fills in the “1st Active” date; obviously, we don’t want it reset each time an item is bumped since it’s the “1st active date”, and can be used to help determine how long the item has been worked on (in combination with the close-date when the item is marked “Done”).

Side-Note: I realize the “Timeline” column seems attractive for this, but there’s no way in automations to set the start, and end, dates in the timeline… the “date created” doesn’t apply here, since we have tasks on the Sprint board that are just cued for future work, and the create-date for those doesn’t accurately reflect when the work begins.

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Hey Rob,

Is this along the lines of what you’re looking for?

Screen Shot 2023-11-21 at 3.08.32 pm

We actually recently released this new condition if column is empty.

Let me know :slight_smile:

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This works for our needs – basically, create two rules, one for the date being empty (assign the date), the other being for when it’s not empty (perform the other actions but not assign the date)!

(thank you)

Now related - it WOULD be call if we could treat the first and last dates of a timeline as date fields to assign values to (instead of only being able to assign dates to individual date fields) :wink: I don’t suppose there’s a recent new feature for that one too?

1 Like
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I am glad this can work for you :blush:

As for your second point, to clarify, would you essentially like to be able to set a timeline column (start date and end date) via an automation? Apologies if i am misunderstanding :pray:

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That’s right, automations.

As I understand it, a timeline value essentially has two values in it… a start date and end date. With that in mind, formulas that set date-columns ought to be able to set the start/end dates inside the timeline attribute the same way they would a singular date column