2

I have to make a workflow that sends a weekly reminder to the managers of some listed employees, that's not a hard task to do, I've set the workflow to send the reminder to the manager's email column, but the problem comes whenever there is one manager for let's say 100 employees, so each week that manager will receive 100 email reminders for each of the employees. And that's what I'm trying to prevent, how can I set it up, so if a reminder email has been sent to this particular manager(this particular manager email), not to send it anymore for that week, to be sent only once to each of the managers, no matter how many employees they have signed to them?Here is my workflow

Improve this question
13
  • Please elaborate it more. How will the names of employees will be stored, how will the managers for employees will get mapped, etc.
    – mohd tahir
    Dec 13, 2016 at 9:47
  • There are fields with employees and a field with managers, each employee will be under a specified manager, that info will be manually put inside the list. The thing is that one manager will have many employees, so I'm trying to prevent the reminder to be sent for each of the employees, but to be sent once, for each manager no matter how many employees he/ she has, only one reminder to be sent.
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 13, 2016 at 10:09
  • I could help but still not clear what is your current approach , which workflow you going with ? (2010 or 2013). What logic have you written to maintain the 7 days bracket. How you wish to automate this process. We could work together in that way and try to achieve it.
    – mohd tahir
    Dec 14, 2016 at 6:59
  • It's a 2013 workflow. So what I've done- in a list there is a column for employees names, another one for manager email where each employee belongs to a specific manager.One manager could have as many employees as they've signed to him.I'm trying to set a weekly email report sent to the manager, I'm going to email the Excel file with the latest info available from this list.I have a date column with 'today" set as date, and a "Yes, No" column, "No" as default. In the workflow here is what I've written- Set Today column to today date and if Email sent equals No, to email the report to manager.
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 15, 2016 at 15:09
  • Then to set the Email sent column to yes, then to pause for 7 days(1 week), to set the Email sent column to No and to restart the whole process, so the manager could have a report each and every week.Now that works fine, but the problem is that it sends an email for each and every employee that belongs to that manager, for example, the manager has 100 employees that are assigned to him, so each week he'll receive 100 email reports for each one of them. And I'm trying to make it work in a way that if an email has been sent to a manager's email, to send it only once instead of 100 in this case.
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 15, 2016 at 15:13

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Ok..You need to have a flag in your workflow. Create one more Column say EmailSentThisWeek and assign it default value as No. From the workflow change this column value to Yes as soon as the first email is sent. Once the column value is set to Yes check for this column value( IF condition) before sending another email. If its value is Yes then it shouldnt go inside IF condition and hence no email will be sent.

Improve this answer
5
  • Hi Ankit and thank you for your answer. I thought of that and did it ,but the problem is that on the next turn around again the same happens.I made a column called Email Sent, yes and no column, default no and wrote the following workflow-if column email sent equals no, to send an email to the manager and then to set the field of the column to yes.But on the next turn around all columns are set back to no and the email goes to all again.
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 13, 2016 at 10:03
  • Use a Single line of text column and assign value to this column from workflow. Dont keep any default value. Assign No at the beginning of workflow and Yes once the email is sent and then Nobefore the workflow ends
    – Ankit Kumar
    Dec 13, 2016 at 10:07
  • I didn't get that quite well Ankit, should it be a choice filed with yes, no as options?
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 13, 2016 at 10:22
  • not required since Yes no will be just a value which will be inserted by workflow and not manually by end user. just create a single line of text field and hide it from the view
    – Ankit Kumar
    Dec 13, 2016 at 12:40
  • Hi Ankit, I've added an image of my workflow, which you could have a look at in the description, as I think the logic is fine, just I'm missing something as it still keeps sending many emails instead of one.
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 15, 2016 at 15:35
1

See Benny you could possibly save mangers name along with a date (Today) in another list. This could be done in workflow, and have another field named as flag. Now you create item in this list every time manager receives an email. Most importantly you will have to keep a check in the second list for every instance of workflow. If the manager already exists with date (today) , end the workflow there itself. This is appropriate for one day , now you have to extend it for a week.

Improve this answer
1
  • Let me try it and will get back to let you know, thank you!
    – Benny Blanco
    Dec 19, 2016 at 9:50

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.