Automation emails and text

SueinSpain

Hi Team,

I have a smartsheet automation that emails out information.

In the body of the email I refer to field contents by encasing the field name in {{fieldname}} quotes.

when filling in the form to data capture I have 3 fields regarding the person requesting the action

• Requested By Name - this is a text field
• Requested Bt Email - this is a contacts list of emails
• Requested By ID - this is a text field

When I include in the body of my email… the Name is the persons name, the ID is the ID but the email is NOT their email but their name against that email.

How do I get the email address to show?

examples below

so the email address is there as a contact but on the automated alert it is just the name repeated

HOW DO I GET THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL

really hope you can help

many thanks

Sue

SueinSpain

@Andrée Starå

Still no luck, even opening a support ticket as at the moment the issue is a Manual copy to a helper field whereas all this is done in an automated sequence and due to volumn, just cannot have a manual step.

Thanks for the formula that looks incredibly complicated so it is bound to work :) I just need to get over the manual copy. I don't mind if it has the name and the email it is just that it is not showing the email at all at the moment.

I will keep trying and report back if I get working

SueinSpain

So I think I have solved this in the most basic of ways.

I deleted my contacts list as I was unable to amend the Name only the email part of the list.

I then retyped a contacts list where only the email was entered and the name left blank as my users should recognise their own email address.

This resulted in the entries in the Requested By Email field to be just the email address and this pulled through to the automated email when accessed {{Requested By Email}}

I will be raising a product enhancement request for this as it seems daft that a contact list cannot access JUST the email part or even both without manual intervention

Thanks for all the support and help as I have learnt a lot with the different things tried

Naeem Ejaz

Use a Helper Column to Extract the Email

1. Create a new column: Requested By Email (Helper)
2. Use the following formula in that column:

=EMAIL([Requested By Email]@row )

This extracts the actual email address from the contact field.

Andrée Starå

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/486808#Comment_486808

Hi,

I hope you're well and safe!

This is incorrect. There is no EMAIL function in Smartsheet.
You must check the answers from the AI.

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Smartsheet Expert Consultant & Partner / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅ Did I help answer your question/solve the problem? Please support with💡 ⬆️ ❤️, and/or ✅ Answer. This will make it easier for others to find a solution or help answer! I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏

Andrée Starå

Hi,

I hope you're well and safe!

You can copy the contact to a helper column (Contact Helper) and then use something like this.

=SUBSTITUTE(MID([Contact Helper]@row , FIND("<", [Contact Helper]@row ) + 1, LEN([Contact Helper]@row ) - (FIND("<", [Contact Helper]@row ) + 1)), ">", "")

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Smartsheet Expert Consultant & Partner / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅ Did I help answer your question/solve the problem? Please support with💡 ⬆️ ❤️, and/or ✅ Answer. This will make it easier for others to find a solution or help answer! I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏

SueinSpain

so far no answers from AI but I'll keep trying different keywords but no luck to date

SueinSpain

@Andrée Starå

So still no luck with this one

AI cannot produce anything and even support haven't come up with an answer.

The main field "Requested By Email" is a contact field, single unrestricted entry. So "Sue Rogers srogers@mwiah.co.uk"

My automated alert email just refers to the field contents in the normal way {{Requested By Email}} but is only displaying the text part of the email "Sue Rogers" and not the actual email part

I guess a helper field will be needed but 2 questions

• does the helper field need to be a Contact or text field
• what formula ????? I don't know where to start on this one

Andrée Starå

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/486878#Comment_486878

Did you try my formula I mentioned in my previous post? The helper you copy to should be a text column.

You can copy the contact to a helper column (Contact Helper) and then use something like this.

=SUBSTITUTE(MID([Contact Helper]@row , FIND("<", [Contact Helper]@row ) + 1, LEN([Contact Helper]@row ) - (FIND("<", [Contact Helper]@row ) + 1)), ">", "")

Did it work/help?

✅ Remember! Did I help answer your question/solve the problem? Please support with💡 ⬆️ ❤️, and/or ✅ Answer. This will make it easier for others to find a solution or help answer! I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏

MarjorieP

@SueinSpain I have tried to do this, but I always end up needing to use a second sheet for the helper column. I hope you can figure this out. I have not had any success since each project requires different contacts that are not shared with everyone.

It may work for you if you already have a standard list with all contacts and create a helper column in another sheet that copies the contact from the primary sheet. Use the formula that was provided above by Andree for a second column on the reference sheet and then copy that second column to the primary sheet. It is very convoluted but seems to work. I just couldn't get this to work for my setup due to the way we configured it.

SueinSpain

@Andrée Starå

Still no luck, even opening a support ticket as at the moment the issue is a Manual copy to a helper field whereas all this is done in an automated sequence and due to volumn, just cannot have a manual step.

Thanks for the formula that looks incredibly complicated so it is bound to work :) I just need to get over the manual copy. I don't mind if it has the name and the email it is just that it is not showing the email at all at the moment.

I will keep trying and report back if I get working

SueinSpain

So I think I have solved this in the most basic of ways.

I deleted my contacts list as I was unable to amend the Name only the email part of the list.

I then retyped a contacts list where only the email was entered and the name left blank as my users should recognise their own email address.

This resulted in the entries in the Requested By Email field to be just the email address and this pulled through to the automated email when accessed {{Requested By Email}}

I will be raising a product enhancement request for this as it seems daft that a contact list cannot access JUST the email part or even both without manual intervention

Thanks for all the support and help as I have learnt a lot with the different things tried

Andrée Starå

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/487123#Comment_487123

You're more than welcome!

Glad you got it working!

✅ Remember! Did I help answer your question/solve the problem? Please support with💡 ⬆️ ❤️, and/or ✅ Answer. This will make it easier for others to find a solution or help answer! I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏

liz.mayeux

This doesn't help but is more of a comment. I dislike that when we need something specific that a "helper" column is the only solution to generate a response. When you are working on a sheet that already has over 10 columns for intake/column formula/check boxes, etc. Creating multiple helper columns to create the desired outputs is definitely frustrating.