How to View Automation Workflows in Smartsheet
Smartsheet shows automation one sheet at a time, behind a panel you have to open. That is fine until you need an answer about all of them at once — who still gets emailed, or why a workflow stopped firing. Here is how to read the workflows on a sheet, how to tell a paused one from a broken one, and how to see the whole account in a single list.
View the workflows on one sheet
Automation is stored on the sheet, so you start from the sheet:
- At the top left of the sheet, select Automation → Manage automation workflows.
- The dialog lists every workflow on that sheet and filters them by status — All, Active, Inactive and Unable to run — with sorting by name, date modified, date created or last run.
- Click a workflow to open it and read the whole chain — what triggers it, what conditions it applies, and what it does (notify someone, request an update, request an approval).
- From there you can activate, deactivate, edit, duplicate or remove any workflow on the sheet.
Why there is no list of all your workflows
That panel is the whole story: there is no account-wide automation view, so "which workflows are running across my sheets?" can only be answered by opening every sheet in turn. Two ordinary questions inherit the problem — which workflows still email the person who just left?, usually asked the week they leave, and why did this one stop firing?
Paused on purpose, or broken?
A workflow can be off for two very different reasons. Somebody may have deactivated it deliberately, which shows as Inactive. Or Smartsheet disabled it by itself because the sheet changed underneath it — a column the workflow uses was deleted or had its type changed, or it no longer has any eligible recipients under the sheet and account permission settings — which shows as Unable to run, and the rule keeps a reason naming what broke.
So on any one sheet, the distinction is there for the reading. The catch is that "Unable to run" is a filter you have to go looking for, sheet by sheet, and the workflows that quietly stopped notifying anyone live on exactly the sheets nobody opens. Nothing tells you the count across an account.
Recipients are worth reading carefully too. A workflow can name people directly, and it can also send to whoever is listed in a contact column — so a person can be notified by a workflow that never mentions them by name.
See your automation rules across every sheet
Our Workflow Inventory reads the automation on every sheet you can open — up to 1,000 sheets in a run — and puts it in one searchable table: the sheet, the workflow, its trigger, its recipients and its status. One limit worth being straight about: Smartsheet’s API returns single-step notification, approval and update-request rules and refuses multistep workflows (and Slack alerts), so no API-based inventory — ours included — can list those. Within that, search an email address to find every rule that still notifies someone, or filter to the broken ones — each with the reason Smartsheet switched it off, in plain English. It is read-only, so nothing is paused, edited or deleted for you; you get the list, and fix what needs fixing in Smartsheet.
Do it in one pass instead
See your Smartsheet automation rules in one list. Search which workflows email a given person, and find the ones Smartsheet has quietly switched off.
Try Workflow Inventory FreeFrequently asked questions
Can I see all automation workflows in Smartsheet at once?
Not in Smartsheet itself — Automation → Manage automation workflows covers one sheet at a time and there is no account-wide view. An inventory tool reads the automation on every sheet you can open and lists it together, with recipients, triggers and status. One caveat: Smartsheet’s API returns single-step notification, approval and update-request rules but not multistep workflows, so those cannot appear in any API-based list.
How do I find which workflows email a particular person?
Manually, you open each sheet’s workflow panel and read the recipients. Across an account that is impractical, which is why the question usually surfaces the week somebody leaves. Searching an inventory of every automation rule the API returns by email address answers it in one go.
Why is my Smartsheet workflow switched off when I did not touch it?
Smartsheet deactivates a workflow on its own when the sheet changes under it — for example a column it references is deleted or retyped, or it is left with no eligible recipients under the sheet or account permission settings. On the sheet it shows as "Unable to run" rather than "Inactive", and the rule keeps a reason naming what broke — but you only see that by opening that sheet’s automation panel and filtering for it.