Convert text to contact

Morena

Hi Guys

How can I convert text to a contact?

I have a contact column - Recon Preparers, but when i use the formula below it returns a text instead of contact.

SoS | Dan Palenchar

Hello @Morena,

It looks like your formula's goal is to pull in multiple contacts and break them into a group. Unfortunately, this will not work with a contact column.

Linking contact columns is a 1:1 relationship - meaning you can pull in an individual contact cell into another cell and this include when there are multiple contacts in a cell.

So if you want to get every Recon Preparer that is listed under the Owner of Philani Mchunu, you would need some type of lookup table and put all of those Recon Preparer contacts into a single multi-select contact column. You could then pull that in via a cell link or a lookup formula.

Paul Newcome

We cannot currently use formulas to output multiple usable contacts just with the core product alone. If you have access to Data Shuttle or Data Mesh though, it can be made to work. Take a look at the below thread:

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/123433/combine-emails-into-a-multiple-contact-column-multi-contact-column

SoS | Dan Palenchar

Hello @Morena,

It looks like your formula's goal is to pull in multiple contacts and break them into a group. Unfortunately, this will not work with a contact column.

Linking contact columns is a 1:1 relationship - meaning you can pull in an individual contact cell into another cell and this include when there are multiple contacts in a cell.

So if you want to get every Recon Preparer that is listed under the Owner of Philani Mchunu, you would need some type of lookup table and put all of those Recon Preparer contacts into a single multi-select contact column. You could then pull that in via a cell link or a lookup formula.

Paul Newcome

We cannot currently use formulas to output multiple usable contacts just with the core product alone. If you have access to Data Shuttle or Data Mesh though, it can be made to work. Take a look at the below thread:

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/123433/combine-emails-into-a-multiple-contact-column-multi-contact-column

Brian_Richardson

@Paul Newcome thanks for the reference :-) … that you suggested I do haha.

Paul Newcome

@Brian_Richardson No worries. I actually just saw that you had a piece in there for Bridge too. I was fighting with it for a few hours and couldn't quite get it to work. I hadn't thought to use the Split Text step, so thanks for that too.

Brian_Richardson

Did you get it working? If not let me know and we could connect.

Paul Newcome

@Brian_Richardson I haven't had a chance to try to put it together just yet. I am hoping to be able to find some time for it Friday afternoon.

Paul Newcome

@Brian_Richardson I was able to get it to work. As you said in your post… While Bridge can be a bit complex to learn (and I am still learning), the workflow for this is relatively straightforward. I just never though to split it out into an array. I kept trying to get it to take the initial value as a string and drop that in instead.

Brian_Richardson

@Paul Newcome hooray!

Morena

@Paul Newcome

Hi Paul. Thanx for the reference.

I have used the Data Shuttle, the issue I am facing is that when the contact list is short it works fine, but if the contact list is long like in pic 1 below, then it doesn't work, please advise

Pic 1 - 50 contacts list

On the following pic i shorted the contact list and works fine,

Pic 2 - 12 contacts list

Brian_Richardson

@Morena Good point- contact columns have a fixed limit of 20 contacts so if you have more than that in your text list then you’ll need to split it somehow to blocks of twenty and post to multiple columns.