One of my users fines the columns difficult to read when reviewing an item. The workaround for is to use an automation to create an update with the fields from the board. The board that they are using is populated from a form, so when a new item is created on their board I am populating that update with those field names.
This in concept is great, but it is not currently working as I had planned. Some of the field items are appearing as blank in the update. My assumption is that the automation is triggering off of the item creation, but not all the fields are immediately populated at the time that it is created.
Has anyone else experienced this or have a suggestion for a workaround? If I trigger it off of one of the other statuses on the item, I assume that I would still have the same problem that not all of the fields may be populated. I almost need a “if field is not blank” trigger.
I guess this is dependent on how the item is created. If it is created by a form the item’s column values are updated on the same event and you will see those values. If the item is generated through the UI the item is created without column values and therefore you won’t see these values. Features like “item defaults” all run after the item creation has taken place so those values are filled in after the fact and will not appear in your update.
Thanks @basdebruin, all of these items I have been testing have been input through the form. I knew there was some issues with automations closer to the time that I was building it, so I waited a week and fields are still missing from the update through the automation.
The issue that Bas is referring to regarding timing cannot be resolved by waiting. Once the update is created, its text will never change. If, as Bas mentioned, some of the column values are being set either by item defaults or other automations, the only solution is to do something to delay that creation of the update until all of the columns are ready.
One solution could be to use one of the “delayed” columns (or add a special column specifically for this purpose) as the trigger instead of the “item created”. Then you could use an automation like this to create the update:
