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  • Adding a filter only to triggers on the checkbox row, but I still can’t get it to work.
Question

Adding a filter only to triggers on the checkbox row, but I still can’t get it to work.

  • 4 October 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 351 views
J

Hey guys,

 

I’m fairly new to Zapier, and I am trying to use Zapier to send an outbound email when a Google Sheets checkbox is ticked.

I tried the “New or Updated Spreadsheet Row...” trigger and selected the column of the checkbox. I tried adding a filter so the zap only triggers on the checkbox row, but I still can’t get the zap to work.

I think primarily, the filter step is not working because I am selecting the wrong filters. Any tips on what to select in the second drop down?

 

 

This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

5 replies

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @JayM 

Good question.

Make sure your GSheet is configured correctly to work with Zaps: https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/8495978765965

 

“New or Updated Spreadsheet Row” trigger behavior

If you’re using the New or Updated Spreadsheet Row trigger and choose Any column to monitor, any change to a row will trigger your Zap. If you select a specific column, then the Zap will only trigger when there are changes on that column.

miscEye icon Note

Zaps using New or Updated Spreadsheet Row will also trigger for any new rows in the spreadsheet, even if the specified column is blank. To avoid triggering in those cases, add a Filter step to your Zap.

 

The Google Sheets trigger is marked "instant" but it still takes a few minutes to trigger

The triggers for Google Sheets are unique among Zapier triggers. When there is a trigger event in the spreadsheet, Zapier gets a notification webhook from Google about this. After that, Zapier sends Google Sheets a request for new data, so it uses both the polling and instant trigger methods. This process takes about 3 minutes overall.

While not being "instant", these triggers are faster than regular polling ones, as they don't depend on the polling interval of the plan your account uses.

 

 

Other help articles: https://zapier.com/apps/google-sheets/help

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
jesse
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hey @JayM happy to help here! Before we jump to any sheet formatting, can you share more on why you think your filters currently don’t work? What are you expecting to happen and what is happening instead? Let’s start there and I am sure we can get to the bottom of this, soon!

J

Hi @jesse glad you’re here to help. So here’s the problem why I think the setup is not functioning properly. I selected a column in the google sheet where there is a checkbox trigger. Every time that the checkbox is triggered it is supposed to send an outbound email update to my colleagues. But it doesn’t send an outbound email after the checkbox is triggered. Maybe it will take a time to function and send an outbound email update so I waited for about an hour but there isn’t any outbound email update received. Hope you can help me. Thanks!

chanelle
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Hey @JayM! Quick question, is your Zap published/on? If not, check this out on refreshing your trigger data. That may be the underlying cause of your issue, it appears that your Zap is set up correctly.  

If things still aren’t working, you can always skip all of your tests, turn the Zap on, and check-off a check box on your sheet that you have never checked before, and let us know if anything appears in your Zap History for that Zap, after 15 minutes. 

A

Hello folks, I actually am running into a similar issue here - I have a ZAP that I want to trigger when a checkbox is ticked in a column.

I currently have it set up to trigger when a column is updated, and all the cells in that column (where there are rows that contain data) have an empty checkbox in them by default.
 

The problem is, it appears never to actually trigger this first step. I do have a filter set up for step 2 as shown here:

But the ZAP never gets started. When I tick the checkbox in the spreadsheet, I expect Zapier to understand that as an Updated Row from Sheets. But it is not even starting the first step, so there’s no history to investigate.

Why wouldn’t ticking the checkbox in the assigned column result in a trigger?

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