Automations Suggestions: Confirmation Dialog and/or Trigger Once Only

Question

After inadvertently triggering an automation several times recently, I started thinking - it would be great to have a confirmation dialog option where a dialog box could pop up with “Are you sure you want to…?” first, before the automation actually happens (in my case, sending out an email).
Alternatively (or in addition to), it would be great to have an option to limit triggering the automation to only once per record, even if the conditions in the record change.
Would anyone else use these features?

Justin_Barrett · Accepted Answer

Thanks for the response, Justin! I had the niggling feeling in the back of my mind that this was a flaw in the design, but frankly haven’t had the time to work through it. Basically, I have an email that is sent out via automation when a checkbox is checked. There are two different versions of the email that are deployed based on a single-select field (call it Group A and Group B). So the conditions of the automation are “when Checkbox is checked and when Group is A” (or B). My screw-up happened when I moved a few people between the two groups - the email went out again to those people. For my specific use-case, I don’t want that to happen. If there’s an obvious change I can make, I’d love to hear it!

@Anna Whenever I use a checkbox as part of an automation trigger, I design the automation to un-check the box at the end of the other actions. That should solve the problem you’re having. If you move people between groups with the box unchecked, nothing would happen. You’d need to check the box again to trigger another email delivery.

To clear any field as part of an “Update record” action, just add the field to the action, but don’t put anything in the field settings. This works for any field type, including checkboxes.

Justin_Barrett · Answer

Anna:it would be great to have a confirmation dialog option where a dialog box could pop up with “Are you sure you want to…?” first, before the automation actually happens (in my case, sending out an email).I can sorta see some possible benefit to a confirmation in rare cases, but frankly I haven’t yet run across such a case. What comes to mind is a question: why do you want to confirm the automation run? Is it because it’s containing missing or incomplete data? If this happens a lot, my thoughts turn to redesigning the trigger to be more “sturdy” (for lack of a better word), resistant to erroneous/accidental triggers by improving the system in which the automation plays a part. Anna:Alternatively (or in addition to), it would be great to have an option to limit triggering the automation to only once per record, even if the conditions in the record change.I find my thoughts after reading this going to the same place as above. Instead of wishing for a new setting to only run the automation once per record, I want to look for ways to improve the design so that it’s virtually impossible to trigger a record more than once. For example, if the trigger is “When a record matches conditions”, I’ll scrutinize the conditions and tweak them so that only precisely-set conditions will trigger the automation, or perhaps look at how those conditions are being met in various ways and change the base design to prevent accidental re-triggers.Long story short, I feel that both of these problems are probably better solved by improving the base design, the automation design, or both. If you’d like help with any of this, feel free to share the specifics of your setup and we can offer tips on how to optimize it.

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