Sorting of Contact field

John H Smith

in sorting a report by contact field (VP), I noticed unexpected results. Instead of sorting by the contact name (example Maura, Lisa), smartsheet is using the associated email address for sort order (example Lisa_Hart@companyname.com)

Request enhancement to allow users to sort Contact field by the name instead of email address. could be optional as to which the user picks.

Tim Starkey

I just went through a support ticket, as I thought it was a bug in Smartsheet. I had some anomalies not sorting correctly. Julie V, Justin M, Juan W. It was because we use a 1st letter of first name combined with last name for our emails. So the sort was 'almost' correct. Through support I found out Smartsheet sorts contact fields by email, not name. Searching here, found out that change happened in Nov 2021, and was intentional.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/85996/how-can-i-get-smartsheet-to-help-with-ongoing-issue-with-sorting-by-contacts

I can kind of understand why Smartsheet would do this, as another odd behavior I have found is 'variations' on a contacts name. Staff have control of their display names through their account settings. Some staff set up their account with one name (usually formal), then decide to change it to something else. Say starting out with Nicholas and changing it to Nick later.

Well, I assumed once you changed your name in your account, it populated out to the sheets… but I don't think that happens… as I have reports that have both Nick and Nicholas (same person). So, my guess is Smartsheet decided that the email is more static?

Although, I have run into trouble when someone gets married, and we change their email. I have had to create new accounts for them since I can't change their email… at least I didn't figure out how.

So, I like your option of allowing to sort by name OR email