Combine Contacts from multiple columns into a single cell
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@Olen Ronning - please add this functionality to the roadmap. My scenarios and use cases are similar to the others already mentioned.
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My use case here is to group team members (linked in from our team sheet) so I can create one group in a cell and have that populate as a group when selecting roles to approve a proof. At the moment I can only select individual roles. As an additional point, it would be useful if we are able to de-select users assigned to proofs, as users change roles, move out of the organisation etc.
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I have two columns, Supervisor and Task Owner. There are many times where a Supervisor can also be a Task Owner. I would love to create a helper column that combines that row's Supervisor and Task owner in one multi contact column. Throw that in a report and make a Dynamic View and "Restrict view by current user" and I have a single Dynamic View for showing my internal clients their responsibility.
Since that can't be accomplished, I have to provide two Dynamic Views. I'm from Wisconsin... even I think that is cheesy!!
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I hope you're well and safe!
You could use a filter instead in the sheet, so if it's the current user in either of the columns, it will work to keep it in one Dynamic View. I just set this up for a client with multiple contacts on a record that should be able to access it.
Would that work/help?
I hope that helps!
Be safe, and have a fantastic week!
Best,
Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD
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Andrée, the inability to populate a multi-contact column by formula continues to necessitate all sorts of workarounds, and I infer your suggestion to @Daniel Miller is one of them.
I assume the filter would be an OR setup that would in effect blend two or more Contacts columns. I'll give that a try.
Troy
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Sheet A has a column of email addresses, the quantity of which is always unknown (could be 5 rows today, 10 rows tomorrow) and content is not always static as people change roles (email x may be changed to email y tomorrow).
Sheet B has an automation to request an update.
How does Sheet B sent the request to all the email addresses in Sheet A?
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Adding another request for multi-contact column by formula!!! This is a huge need for so many use cases! Please add this to the roadmap!!!!!
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Following discussion with Pro Desk: "This will be an enhancement request to be able to pull the contacts into another sheet and display it as contact list."
- We have a changing list of 9-12 contacts (email addresses) in sheet A (contacts column)
- Data shuttle offloads unique contacts, then uploads them to a holding sheet B (we tried both text and contact column types)
- A formula in sheet C (contacts column) joins the contacts from sheet B into one cell per row
- An automation in sheet C sends an alert to the contacts in that contacts column cell when a row is changed.
The problem is, the joined contacts are text, not contacts, and no alerts get sent.
The formula =join({contact list}, char(10)) was used. We also tried =join({contact list}, char(44)). Neither formula converted the list of email addresses to contacts that the automation would recognize.
Please consider how we pull a list of contacts from sheet into one cell in another sheet so that automated alerts can be sent.
Thank you!
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Along the same topic, if Contact cells were able to reference User Groups, and if the Current User functionality could reference User Groups instead of just individual users, this would also help solve what I think is a common use case for wanting to control visibility across multiple teams with varying users and roles in Reports and Dashboards. Following for updates, thanks!
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If this post is still going, I am happy to share a solution that I created this week using two sheets a JOIN(COLLECT( formula, and a data shuttle to achieve multiple contacts in one cell that preserves the contact as a real contact.
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I've just realized the ability to combine multiple contact columns into one is critical for Portfolio WorkApps. We need to have separate contact columns on our Intake Sheet for different project roles, but since I can't combine multiple columns into one contact column, I have to create multiple WorkApp roles for each. There are many instances in which the page access will be identical for multiple roles, but Control Center doesn't allow you to assign the same WorkApp role to more than one contact column on your intake sheet. This means I have to manage access for each role separately, which is inefficient.
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I echo Julie on the portfolio WorkApp use case. This is would incredibly helpful, but it also has many other use cases.
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@robertking, I'm curious to see your solution. The fact that it uses Data Shuttle indicates it's not fully dynamic and thus might not meet my need, but I'll be interested to scope it out.
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@Cleversheet Sheet A contains the email addresses of teachers in our schools, along with their respective school names. Sheet B, on the other hand, lists the names of the schools. In Sheet B, I utilize the JOIN(Collect) formula, referencing the school name column and Sheet A, to consolidate the email addresses of teachers for each school. It's important to note that the column used for the join(collect) formula must be a text column to collect multiple email addresses.
In addition to the text column used in the join(collect) formula, create a multi-contact column. This is where the offload data shuttle and upload data shuttle come into play. The offload data shuttle is responsible for offloading Sheet B as an attachment to itself, capturing the multiple email addresses per school. The upload data shuttle is triggered by a sheet attachment and maps the school name column and multiple emails to a multi-contact column.
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There is a 20 contact limit per cell.
