Dynamic View and Contact Lists

Meredith Rhodes

Hello!

I have created a dynamic view of a clinical trial database for ~6 regulatory staff (with editor permissions) to update.

On occasion, they will need to update the Principal Investigator (PI) cell. This cell is set up as a Contact List that is NOT restricted to a list of values. When they access this field via their dynamic view - they can see the current PI, but they can't type in a new contact - nor do they see a list of contacts to select from.

When I try to do the same using their dynamic view - I (the sheet owner / licensed user) can see any and all contacts that are associated with our Institutional Smartsheet instance.

I would like for the Reg staff to be able to change the PI name from their view - rather than accessing the monster sheet it references.

ADDITIONALLY: I have edited all contacts that are associated with the referenced sheet individually such that their last names are first (ie. Smith, Tim) so that if anyone sorts this sheet by PI, they can more easily find who they are looking for. Could this be why they are not seeing anything?

Is there any way to Automatically change all contacts in a list to be viewed this way?

Thanks for any ideas.

Meredith

Genevieve P.

Hi @Meredith Rhodes

Are these collaborators members of your Smartsheet plan, or do they have separate Smartsheet accounts that are shared individually to items?

Shared users looking at a Dynamic View should see the Contacts that are part of their own plan as options in an unrestricted dropdown list. That means if I accessed your Dynamic View, the list that I would see would be my Smartsheet colleagues (and any other personal contacts I've added into my account), versus seeing your colleagues. Does that make sense?

Based on what you're describing, it sounds like your shared users may not have access to the same Contact list as you. In this instance, if you know the set list of possible PI's, I would recommend adding those as Values in the Column itself, and restricting the dropdown to those values. That will ensure the names appear for anyone looking at the Dynamic View, regardless of what plan/account they're associated with.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Meredith Rhodes

Thank you @Genevieve P. -

I'm working through my Institutional account - my teammates have edit access through our Institution. So I'd guess they should see all of the Institutional Users.

I'd like to keep the list unrestricted for the (lazy) reason that I'm the only licensed user - and all subsequent support requests come to me - which would include a 'please add this contact tot the list' request. In the interest of helping everyone help themselves, if they could see our Institutional users, that would be ideal.

In the meantime though - I can play around with this. Is there a way to use a Smartsheet Group as a dropdown list for Contacts?

Thanks again!

Meredith

Genevieve P.

Hey @Meredith Rhodes

Just to clarify - even if someone is provided sheet sharing access by a specific institution, they may not be added as a free member of that plan, but instead only given sharing access.

However there is a difference between sheet sharing and organization members:

• Unlicensed, free members should see all other contacts in that organization/institution.
• Shared, free collaborators will not, since they're not "linked" to your plan.

Does that make sense? A System Admin for your plan can double check whether or not these users are included in your account, here's more information: Admin Center: Manage users, define roles, and more

To your last question, no, there currently isn't a way to set a group as the list that appears in a Contact column.

Let me know if this helps at all!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Meredith Rhodes

Thank you @Genevieve P.

My problem isn't solved YET - but I'm on the right track. I checked with my system admin - and sure enough - only 2 of the 6 staff accessing this dynamic view are associated with the institutional account. Our email domain is slightly different that the institutional domain. This may be the issue here.

Genevieve P.

@Meredith Rhodes

I'm glad to hear this helped! Even if the email domain is different, your System Admin should be able to manually add these users as Free Members of your plan (no license).

Meredith Rhodes

Thanks again, @Genevieve P. - this was indeed the issue. She was able to add our email domain to the user account and the Regulatory Staff are now able to see the dropdown list on the dynamic view :)