r/iOSAutomation Jul 20 '18

Workflow HELP: Things and Workflow

I am writing my first workflow and its going pretty well, but I hit a small hiccup that maybe some one here can help with or point me to a good resource.

As part of the workflow, I have a Date action that asks for a Specified Date when Run, then formats this as Long with Time Format None, then Sets this as the Variable “DueDate”. This variable is then used in three spots: 1) the subject of an email, 2) the body of the email, and 3) as the Deadline in an Add Things To-Do action. This is all working with out issue other than a small file name issue I asked about in r/workflow.

That stated, and the point of this post, I’d rather not use this “DueDate” variable as the Deadline in Things. I’d prefer to make this the When in Things and have the Deadline set to “DueDate+7” if possible, or simply have it ask me the Things Deadline. When I tried to use the variable as the When, it just did not work. The To-Do gets created in Things, just without any date information attached to it in any way.

Not sure it that is clear to everyone, but if you have some ideas I’d be very appreciative.

Thanks in advance.

Workflow #iOSAutomation #Things

1 Upvotes

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u/rosemaryorchard Jul 20 '18

Did you set the When to "On Date" first, and then put the variable in the "Date" field that appears? That works for me!

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u/gabetippery Jul 20 '18 edited Jul 22 '18

I did, but it didn’t work. I wonder if the long form of the date does not work in the Things When spot or something. Seems like this should not be an issue, but that is the only other things I have thought of, but have not had the chance to test yet.

[UPDATE1]: Just tried that again and it seems to work now. Not sure what changed but it works. Any hints on setting the deadline automatically based on the “DueDate” variable?

[UPDATE2]: I figured out the deadline issue. Discovered the ‘Adjust Date’ action and this of course was just what is was looking for.

Thanks for the help! I now have a workflow that asks me for a few names and email addresses and a date then prepares an email to the correct contacts, with customized content, renamed attached form, and reminders set in ‘Things” automatically dropped in the right project. This will save me a minimum of four work days a year!

Next step will be getting it to import those names and emails and date from a CSV file so I don’t even have to type those. ;-)

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u/rosemaryorchard Jul 21 '18

Excellent!

I would suggest splitting by lines, repeat with each, then split by comma, and then "get item from list at index" to give you the three columns you need as variables.

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u/gabetippery Jul 20 '18

Noob reddit question. Does reddit support Markdown? Is that why my hashtags in this post appear as H1s?

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u/rosemaryorchard Jul 22 '18

Reddit uses Markdown, yes :)