Best way to truncate people's names (to first name, last Initial)

miwalker

We have several dashboards /sheets that have people assigned to tasks, sometimes more than one. When the names get long, it can make it hard to fit within the format we're looking for. Wrapping text will increase the row width, while not wrapping means the column has to be very wide.

Question: What's the best way to change format to First Name, Last initial? When I add the name to "My Smartsheet Contacts" I now see everyone's name listed twice and the "Account Contact List" is always on top and becomes the default selection.

Is the only/best way to do this is to have the Admin truncate the names in the "Account Contact List" for me?

Thanks!

Ipshita

Hello @miwalker -

If you have a contact list or people's names column, then add another column and try the following formula -

=IFERROR(LEFT([First Name]@row, FIND(" ", [First Name]@row) - 1), [First Name]@row

and see if this helps

Cheers,

Ipshita

miwalker

Thank you... I'll give this a shot!