THANK YOU!!! We can now assign multiple contacts to a column!!!!

Loann McGee

Good morning!

I just received the email update from Smartsheet Engage 2018 and I. AM. THRILLED!!!

We can now choose to allow multiple contacts (up to 20!) to be assigned to a row. 

See the article here: https://goo.gl/sTwxNZ

Blessings,

Loann

Loann McGee

NOTE: Downside of changing the column to assigning multiple users:

It changes the column type so that the old column version is no longer valid. That column will need added in to all reports that you have created that includes that column.

Off I go to update about 80 reports...for real. 

Daniel Stein

Thanks Loann for your feedback, and we apologize for the inconvenience of updating your existing sheets/reports to use the new feature. That's right, reports treat single-contact & multi-contact columns as different column types, so you'll want to make sure that "Allow multiple contacts per cell" is checked in all of the underlying sheets feeding into your report.

Please keep us posted on any additional feedback as you continue to use the feature.

Best regards,

Daniel

Paul Johnson1

Please add my vote to remedy this bug in this feature as I have hundreds of sheets and reports that would benefit from Multiple Contacts BUT I am not going to update all the sheets and reports as a workaround for this bug. 

In other words, please fix the bug so that we can use this long awaited very useful feature. 

I also tried to see if your suggestion for regenerating reports worked but can not get this to work. Can you explain exactly what is needed step by step. 

Paul Johnson1

Here is a suggestion , why dont you simply make all assigned to columns allow for multiple contacts by default and then all reports will then show all contacts in reports. In other words remove the option to select this. I dont see the reason for this option anyway!! If we want only one user we will enter only one user and if we need more we will enter more, why have the option. This would mean that all reports would always look for multiple contacts as this would be the only option available. 

 

Daniel Stein

Thanks Paul for your feedback and suggestion, much appreciated.

For context: in our customer research for this feature, we heard that in many cases the sheet admin wants to restrict their contact columns to a single contact, because this can be useful for clear ownership and accountability. In other cases, single assignment isn't needed, and the sheet admin wants to allow multiple assignment for flexibility. It's for this reason that contact columns default to single-assign. We expect most folks to leave them as single-assign, and we generally recommend turning on multi-assign only in sheets where that flexibility is needed.

If you'd like to update sheets that are already used in a report to use multi-assign, then you can follow these steps:

1. In every sheet referenced by the report, open the Column Properties menu for your contact column, and check "Allow multiple contacts per cell."

2. In the report, open the Report Builder and click Columns.

3. You'll see that your old single-assign column is now labeled "(column not found)". Uncheck it, and check the new, multi-assign version of that contact column instead. See the attached screenshot for illustration. Your report will now pull in the multi-contact version of the column.

4. This step is only needed if you previously had a "Who" filter set up based on the contact column. If so, you will see that it now says "(column not found)." Delete this filter and recreate it.

Hope this helps, and please keep us posted if you have additional questions or feedback. You can also contact Support directly for 1:1 help.

So that you know, in response to customer feedback we are looking into how we might make reports automatically combine single- and multi-contact columns that have the same name, to help eliminate the report update steps.

Best regards,

Daniel

Chris Pesqueira

When sending an alert base on this cell with multiple contacts is there a way to make it so everyone is cc'd in the same email?

 

From why I am seeing it sends 1 separate email to each contact

Andrée Starå

Hi Chris,

Unfortunately, it's not possible at the moment, but it's a great idea!

Please submit an Enhancement Request when you have a moment.

Have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

aclay

I am new to smartsheet and the community.  It looks like you may be able to answer a question I have.  I have a multi-contact column that I would like to use in a formula to search for specific users.  I am trying to use a countifs statement but is appears that the it only counts them if the person I am using in the criteria is the only person in the list.  Is there a different way to do what I am trying to do?

Andrée Starå

Hi,

You can use a FIND formula to find the person. I'll get back to you when I find the post about it.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Andrée Starå

Here it is!

https://community.smartsheet.com/comment/153201#comment-153201

Did it work?

Best,

Andrée