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Question

Zap stopped triggering from Google Sheet

  • 24 April 2024
  • 8 replies
  • 37 views
A

I’ve had 2 Zaps running for over a month. They both activate by a new row in my Google sheet.  A Google Form sends the info to the Google sheet.  It’s the same form used every time.  I’ve tried testing it and asking it to collect new records and it’s not seeing any row after 4/15 which is went it last ran successfully.  I only have 35 rows in the google sheet.  I’ve tried turning the Zaps on and off, and turning them off and asking it to retrieve more records.  It’s not seeing the google sheet anymore from the looks of it.  There are no empty lines an I hadn’t edited or worked on the Zap in over 4 weeks.  

 

Help!

8 replies

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi there @AngHal,

Welcome to the Community! 🎉

Can you tell me if there have been any changes made to the spreadsheet? The following changes to a sheet while a Zap is active can cause errors:

  • Deleting existing rows or columns
  • Adding rows anywhere other than to the bottom of your sheet
  • Resorting the sheet 
  • Renaming/adding/rearranging new columns

If you need to make any of those changes to your Google Sheet, you will want to turn your Zap off while you make the change, and then turn it back on again after. More about that here: https://help.zapier.com/hc/en-us/articles/8496276985101-Work-with-Google-Sheets-in-Zaps#turn-your-zap-off-before-making-changes-to-your-sheet-0-4

Additionally, you might need to create the Zap from scratch again to get the Zap working.

A

Thank you for the welcome!

 

I have not deleted any existing rows or columns in the last 4 weeks.  I may have done so early on when I first started using zapier.

I have not added any rows anywhere other than the bottom of the sheet.

I have not resorted the sheets.

There was a revamp of the google form and thus the google sheet but it has been working fine for several weeks prior to now.

 

The Zap was recreated several weeks ago because I didn’t realize they gave a trial of the paid account and I couldn’t have multiple actions under the free account.  So, it stopped working completely and I had to recreate the zaps in 2 different steps.  There are 2 zaps that activate on a new row added and neither is seeing the new data as of 4/15.  There have been 3 rows added to the bottom.

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @AngHal,

Thanks for the update here.

There are a few different potential causes of this.

  • Has that particular row had that same value in that column before?
    For example, if Row 3 has Column A set to "yes", then changed to "no" - that will trigger the Zap. If Row 3 has Column A changed back to "yes", though, the Zap will not trigger as the dedupe list will detect that the Zap has seen that value in that row/column already.
  • Are there any blank rows in the spreadsheet?
    The Zap will see a blank row as the end of the spreadsheet, and not trigger on anything below that blank row. To fix this, please turn the Zap off, delete the blank row, then turn it back on.
  • Do they have a pivot table somewhere in their sheet?
  • You’ll need to delete that in order for it to trigger properly.

Hopefully, this helps.

A

All data is entered on a new row.  It’s placed there by a google form.

There are no blank rows

I do not know what a pivot table is, so I’m going with no, on that.  

This is a little frustrating as I was trying to convince my boss to use the Pay Zapier but it’s not going well when I have to delete and redo the zaps every 4-6 weeks :(

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @AngHal,

I’m really sorry for the frustration here.

You mentioned that the rows are being placed by a Google Form. Have you tried using the Google Forms “New Form Response” trigger instead?

It is no longer a requirement to capture form responses in a spreadsheet. This was a requirement of Google Forms (Legacy), as that is actually just the Google Sheets app "rebranded". Users may capture their responses in a linked sheet if they wish, but this is optional. New form responses will trigger Zaps regardless.

A

Thank you for your reply.  I went through and redid the entire Zap with the form as a trigger.  I was unaware that was available.  The test runs seem to work as of now.  I hope this is the answer!

 

Do you find Form as a trigger versus sheets is less problematic?

A

I just noticed that it’s formatting the date differently.  The Form has the date as 04/27/2024 but when it pulls the data from the form the Zap is using 2024/04/27 .  The Sheets didn’t require a formatting step, as it was provided in the format wanted.  Keep in mind this is a free account.  Why is it pulling the data in a different order from the form than it appeared on the sheet?

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi @AngHal, hope you don’t mind me hopping in here to lend a hand! 🙂

Could any changes have been made to the set up of the date column on the spreadsheet to adjust the format of the dates perhaps? 

Can you take a look in the format settings for the date column in the spreadsheet to confirm whether it’s currently set to YYYY/MM/DD? 

If it is can you try adjusting the formatting for that column in the spreadsheet so that it displays the dates in the desired format (MM/DD/YYYY) to see if that fixes it. See Google’s help guide on how to adjust the formats here: Custom formatting of numbers, dates and currencies

Keen to help get to the bottom of this so please do keep us in the loop on how you get on!

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