API replacing name with email in contact column

Tim Starkey

Our API had been working fine for over 2 years. It adds/updates financial data rows, including the managers name. When it adds a new row, the manager comes in as an email. (It's in email format from the financial database, so that is what is posted to the cell). But I have a report ready to assist with cleaning that up and converting it to their name. Not a big deal since its only adding a few new rows per day.

Here is the issue… historically, it would NOT overwrite the name with the email when it did updates. The way the API works is its one way, so if there is a financial update to that row in the accounting system, it overwrites ALL the associated cells in that row. I assumed it just plugged the email back in, but SSheet knew who it was so left the name. NOW, however, it's replacing the name with the email on every update. While there may only be a few NEW rows, there are over 4000 row updates daily. To make it worse, the sheets have an automation to notify the manager when they get assigned (contact is updated)… the change to email is triggering this… fun.

Thoughts? At first I thought it was a contacts issue. (Not having the contact in that sheet already, or not having the contact in the organization correctly) But the fact that its overwriting a name with the same persons email who is already in the sheet says that is not the issue.

Brian_Richardson

You can try presetting the Contact column with the contact names listed in properties. Then, when an email is posted it might convert.

You can do that programmatically over API with the Update column and define ContactOptions array, where each contact object has both the email and name that you want to see.

I don’t know if that will work or not but it’s worth a try. I’ve always been in the dark in terms of why Smartsheet sometimes converts emails to names and sometimes does not.

You can also update the displayvalue of the cell in addition to the value when you post. Value for a contact is always the email but displayvalue can be the name. Of course, that depends on you knowing the names.

Tim Starkey

HI @Brian_Richardson - I will try prepopulating the column properties with the contacts, and see if that works. It will be problematic to go back and fix as we are not using data mesh/shuttle or whatever it is to keep these projects synced. So once it leaves control center… I have to manually update the column properties.

I also put in a support ticket, as its 'new' behavior, and didn't do this in the past. Will follow up once I know more.