Changing a text/number column type to a contact column removes all the links into the cells

Kam114

Hello,

I inherited a blueprint and about a 100 projects from a previous admin. The previous admin had some of our contacts listed in text/number type columns in the summary sheet so names were showing up as name+<email>. I changed these column types in the summary sheet to become contact types so the email could be hidden and we could utilize the smartsheet contact display. Unforunately, these columns whose properties i've changed in the summary sheet no longer have the linkage arrows showing. The data for these should be flowing from intake sheet—>individual project metadata files—>summary sheet, however this is no longer working.

To confirm, I went back into a few of the metadata sheets and see that the corresponding profile data contacts whose column types i changed in the summary sheet are no longer showing a linkage to that summary sheet.

Interestingly, a few cells where there was no contact name or email present still retain the linkage back to that project's metadata file.

EDIT: I tested out a global update for one of the contact fields via Add Profile Data and selected "Add profile data to summary sheet if missing" and "Link project profile data from intake sheet to project sheet."

Despite getting the yellow triangle warning that this field was already in my selected template (metadata template which would feed into the project summary sheet), this appeared to relink the broken links in the summary sheet.

Can someone tell me if this is the prescribed action to take? Is this a bug that needs to be fixed as I don't believe a change in column type should necessarily break links.

Thanuja kedila

Hi @Kam114,

if its linked Run projects through control center again for each project

Georgie

Hi @Kam114,

Having tested this on my end, I found that changing the column type from text/number to contact list did not break the cell links. It therefore seems that either the cell link was not set up properly in the blueprint originally, or that other changes were made to the columns when the column properties were changed (such as changing the column name).

As you’ve been able to resolve this with a global update, it sounds like your sheets are now working as expected, but I wanted to confirm that changing the column type shouldn’t break cell links - if you see this again in the future, or if you have additional questions, I’d recommend reaching out to our Support team so they can investigate further.

Thanks,

Georgie

Kam114

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/474053#Comment_474053

Thank you so much, @Georgie. I thought so too. I'm wondering why this happened, as I believe I've changed another column type before without this issue, so was just wondering if there may have been a hiccup (it was early on the weekend, and wondering if SS had any maintenance going on). Either way, the global update seemed to have restore the linkages.

Georgie

Happy to help, and glad the global update resolved the issue!

Georgie