Having trouble populating a contact list column (Auto-provisioning is not enabled)

I understand the ultimate solution if I want all employees in a contact list is to enable auto-provisioning. Our IT department isn't ready to do that yet.

In the meantime, I have searched help and the community and can't figure out how to solve the problem. I need the contacts not in "my contact list", I need them as Global contacts.

Example, in my request management system I have 2 fields. One is requester and the other is assigned to. Requestor is on the form where requests are entered, I need the names to show there. as a dropdown list.

Based on what I have read, if I share the sheet with anyone as a collaborator their name should automatically show as a contact, but I am not finding that to be true.

Is there a time delay?

Is there another method I should be using? (is there something in the user admin area we should manually be doing until we turn on auto-provisioning?)

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Accepted answers

Elaine_Port_Mgr

@Michelle Choate 2 After re-reading some of your info, I had our sysAdmin show me the user list and there was my problem. People were being shared smartsheet but not actually in our account user list based on how they were logging in. I can solve my problem now. Thank you.

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Michelle Choate 2

I think I understand what you are saying. You want someone who has just entered their contact info into a sheet, to automatically become one of your contacts, and then also automatically become a contact in a dropdown?

In order to make them a contact in a dropdown, you have to have either Bridge or Data Shuttle to accomplish this for you. And then it would only be an email address, not a name associated with it. They currently do not have this capability.

To automatically make them your contact, I am not sure that this is possible. Also Auto Provisioning means that people who are signing up for a Smartsheet account with your domain name, automatically get added to your account. This has nothing to do with updating drop down menus or contact lists.

Does this all make sense?

Elaine_Port_Mgr

@Michelle Choate 2 Maybe my challenge here is I don't quite get user administration and contacts in Smartsheet. With most software applications, when a user is added to the account, you can also select their name in any "user" field. For example you could define requestor as a "user" field. I was assuming Smartsheet would have a similar functionality and thought Contact List would be the comparable usage.

When I asked this question at the Engage Conference, I was referred to needing to setup auto-provisioning via OKTA SCIM to make it happen, but perhaps I wasn't explaining it well.

So the behavior I am looking for is:

We grant access to Smartsheet to a user
Their name automagically appears in our contact list columns.

If this is not possible then not only do we have to maintain user accounts we also have to build our own spreadsheet with all the same user contact information (names and email addresses) and can't use the Contact List Column type.

Michelle Choate 2

I see what you are saying. I believe that the system Admin for Smartsheet who provisions the accounts will have them automatically added as a contact, and therefore available as an option in a dropdown field if they just start typing their information. I am not sure that this applies to other people inside of the account though - so they might need to type that person's entire email address before they appear as a contact inside of Smartsheet for them. But I am not entirely certain to be honest. I do not have a way to test, as I am the system admin for my company.

Elaine_Port_Mgr

@Michelle Choate 2 Thank for your insight. Perhaps someone else has my same scenario and has figured a way though.

Elaine_Port_Mgr

Michelle Choate 2

I am so glad you were able to figure it out! Good luck!

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