Prevent record progression/closure if certain fields are not completed.
under review
B
Bongi Simelane
Currently, the mandatory field for a task/record is Title, which works great as it's a primary field.
It would be tremendously powerful to prevent the user from changing the record status to CLOSED if certain fields are not completed in that record.
If we want to dive even deeper, it would even be better to tie ability to change to each status to completion of certain fields, where the user can only progress record to REVIEW status once certain fields are completed, then CLOSE only when all fields are complete.
This can easily streamline automation processes where, certain fields must be complete before it triggers.
Landyn U
Commenting to add my support as well! I thought this was under the 'Dependencies' that is in progress, but the more I read into it, I don't think that's the case as Dependencies is based on other records instead of columns within a record.
For my use case, I have a trigger on status change where the customer is sent a copy of their invoice and order information. However, if the Invoice hasn't been created yet, it still sends the email without a copy of the invoice. Joël de Regt has a great write-up on how this would look.
Brian Dollen gave a great example of how to use automations to
temporarily
work through this shared below:When a record is updated where Status changes from Any to Ready for Review AND Invoice(concat formula) is empty, send an email and update record back to status "in process".
A
Adam Johnston
Lowenna Luke
Jon Darbyshire would this be covered by the Dependencies feature that's planned?
Konstantin Skorodumov
Nice approach, Bongi, supporting your request. I could add some more stuff to the statuses - statuses sequence. You can read more here:
Joël de Regt
Yes! And to go even further, I'd love to 'assign' certain fields to certain statuses. When a field would be assigned to a status, it is spotlighted when the record is in this status. Also, when you change the status and the assigned field is empty, SmartSuite would kindly ask me to fill in these empty fields or complete the checklists.
This would also make it easier to provide users with an SOP (linked record) based on a status. This way, they'd never have to look for work instructions, and they'd be able to view them exactly when and where the work is being done.
In summary, this way I'd be certain all checklists are completed, fields are filled and linked records (SOP's) have been viewed, before a records moves to the next status.
This would improve at least 50% of the workflows I'm implementing. To give a few examples:
A blogposts moves from: researching ➡️ drafting ➡️ revising ➡️ visualizing ➡️ editing ➡️ publishing. Each step requiring different SOP's to be read, different checklists to be completed, and different custom fields to be filled in.
The same goes for a lead or job applicant that moves from: lead ➡️ prospect ➡️ proposal ➡️ onboarding.
And the same goes for our process of implementing SmartSuite: extract ➡️ organise ➡️ test, train, transfer ➡️ monitor ➡️ improve
Jon Darbyshire
under review