Confused about Contact List functionality ... Best practices?

Bradley Berneche

This is probably obvious to anyone who has worked extensively with Smartsheet, but as a newcomer imagining how to best use Smartsheet to build efficient and practical solutions, I could use some clarification about the functionality and limits to the Contact List feature.

I understand that an organization's list of licensed users is not a "Contact List" in the context of a Sheet. I understand that each licensed user has their own Smartsheet Contacts under Account.

At first, I understood that any entries made in a Contact List column within a given sheet would be added to the Account's Smartsheet Contacts and available to populate subsequent sheets. I now understand that any such entries are isolated, from sheet to sheet. I understand that the Account's Smartsheet Contacts list is mostly about users designated as collaborators.

In other words, every time you build a sheet, an individual not in your Smartsheet Contacts under Account, needs to be re-added. Am I right?

Is there a way to build a master list of contacts and link it to a solution being built, so that the data would be available to add in drop down list form, for instance? How is this accomplished?

I see both advantages and disadvantages to having all possible Contact List entries included on a single, all-encompassing list. As an example, a list of potential customers already entered into a sales activities sheet would be available when populating a new sheet organizing sold projects. Conversely, a too-wide list of contacts would mix suppliers with clients, adding unnecessary complexity and burden in sorting through the list.

Maybe two or three different master lists?

Can someone share insight regarding this?

Alejandra

Hi @Bradley Berneche,

There currently isn't a way to build a master contact list that can be linked to specific projects, but as you type in the Contact List Column, the list will expand to display a relevant list of matching contacts from:

• your Smartsheet Contacts List
• the User Management screen (available with multi-user plans)
• contacts and email addresses that have been assigned to other rows on the sheet
• people who are shared to the sheet

Also, if you’ve set up preferred contacts in the contact column, you’ll be able to quickly access them by clicking the dropdown arrow in a Contact list cell:

I hope this helps!

Jhoaas

Where do you edit the preferred contacts? I never set any contacts to preferred, and i now have random email addresses in my list without names, and i cannot change or remove them.