Can Smartsheet Send Automated Emails Easily 2026

From an active sheet, like the project schedule Gantt view shown here, click Automation in the top menu bar next to File and Forms. This opens the entry point to Smartsheet's workflow builder, where every automated action for that sheet gets created and managed. Automation lives at the sheet level, so each sheet has its own independent set of workflows.

The Automation Template Gallery lists pre-built options grouped by purpose. "Alert someone when specified criteria are met" is one of the most useful starting points for email reminders.

The template preview explains what it's good for, like notifying stakeholders about at-risk statuses or alerting teammates when a task's phase changes, and spells out the three pieces you'll configure: a trigger, optional conditions, and an action. Clicking Use Template drops a working skeleton into the builder that you then customize instead of assembling one from an empty canvas.

In the workflow builder, the Trigger block defaults to "When rows are changed," watching any field and running the workflow as soon as one is detected. Below it, the Alert someone action lets you send to specific people by typing a name or email, or route the message to everyone shared to the sheet.

Building or editing a workflow needs Owner or Admin permissions on the sheet; Editor access alone isn't enough. A Customize message link and a note confirming the email will be sent from Smartsheet Automation round out the action block, and a small plus button below lets you chain additional steps onto the same workflow.

A workflow that fires on any field change gets noisy fast, so change the trigger's When condition to something specific, such as % Complete changes to 100%. That turns a generic "something happened" alert into a targeted one that fires only when a task finishes, not on every minor edit. You can click "Specify another change" to stack multiple conditions on the same trigger for more precision.

Open Customize message to pull dynamic row data, like Task Name or Status, directly into the email's subject or body using double curly braces, for example {{Task Name}}. The placeholder has to match the column name exactly; a typo or a renamed column drops the value silently instead of throwing an error.

This same screen also lets you choose who the email appears to come from: Smartsheet Automation, your organization, or the person who triggered the workflow. Pulling in real row data instead of a generic notice is what makes the alert useful to someone who hasn't opened the sheet yet.

Before turning the workflow on, check whether delivery should be restricted to people already shared to the sheet or opened up to external stakeholders; that setting controls who's even eligible to receive the alert. Once the workflow looks right, save it and make a live test change, like flipping a task's % Complete to 100%, to confirm the email arrives the way it was configured before relying on it for real deadlines.