Announcing Formula Support for Contact Columns

Chris Kaliveas

@Genevieve P

Gooday,

I have a question pertaining to this thread and was hoping to find out more regarding this new awesome feature.

Using a vlookup or index/match to auto fill a contact column, are you able to set the formula to not update the contact once another condition is met?

Business Case: Sales Transaction occurs through webform. When row is added to sheet, Assigned To column is auto-populated via lookup and Sale Status column is set to "In Progress". Sale Transaction is completed and then Sale Status is set to "Complete". The contact in the Assigned To column no longer works with the company and the contact for sales is updated from the former contact to the new contact in the source sheet of the vlookup function.

Expected Results: Rows with a status of "Complete" will not have the Assigned To values updated with the new contact.

Note: The contact source will be current state and not maintain historical assigned contacts. In other words, just one row for each contact, not two (old vs new).

Kind Regards,

Chris

Andrée Starå

Hi @Chris Kaliveas

I hope you're well and safe!

This might help!

Please have a look at my post below with a method I developed.

More info: 

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/68589/lock-or-store-date-value-solution-without-using-zapier

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Matt Stewart

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/200646#Comment_200646

How do i have the resulting destination cell with formula show the First Last name as a contact and not the email as a contact? Currently i can only get the contact to populate as a contact as Billg@windows.com instead of Bill Gates. I understand the email is what connects it as a contact again, and thats fine, but final appearance it should be user name.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Matt Stewart

This may depend on where you are bringing in the contact information from. Are you referencing a System Generated column (such as Created By or Modified By) in your formula? If so, these columns can only display the email address and the contact will appear as the email in your result, as well.

Matt Stewart

thanks that resolved it!

A Rose

Hello,

Is there any formula to create a Contact Name and Contact Email?

If I have a list of names and a list of emails, can I add the contact via formula - and it should appear as a regular contact - and not only the email part of it?

Use Case: If Status = "Current" - Assign this contact column to Rep 1; "Rep 1 <rep1@test.com>".

The Display of the column should be: "Rep 1" and the email "rep1@test.com".

(When you add a contact and then change the column to text - it has the above format, but in a formula - I don't know if it's possible.)

Thank you!

Genevieve P.

Hi @A Rose

No, there currently isn't a function that can combine an email address and a contact name together to create a Contact type of value in Smartsheet. You can use emails directly in Contact columns being output by a formula.

Here's a Product Idea post that you can vote on to add your feature request: Contact List Components: build a contact via formula

Cheers,

Genevieve

A Rose

Thank you!

I voted up this feature request.

Guys, let's do it!

Here's a Product Idea post that you can vote on to add the feature: Contact List Components: build a contact via formula

Thank you!