How do I include Contact List Columns in Concatenation?

Elliot Holder

I need to create a primary key on a page that includes 3 text columns and 1 contact list. The formula errors when I try to include the contact list, but works fine without it. Is there a way to reference a contact column as text or get it to just read the name in the contact for that cell as text?

Elliot Holder

Ok, figured out the issue. I wasn't using the "" between each inclusion. I'm still open to more efficient solves for storing time entries that may reach into the 10k level every 15 days or less. I would like to use Smartsheet because of the features it has, but Zapier limits it's data pushes based on your membership level and I'm concerned I'll max it out pretty quickly.

Jayesh Nathani

Can you tell me how are you trying to concate?

It does works, all you have to do is:

=RowID@row + "" + [Task Name]@row + "" + [Assigned To]@row

Elliot Holder

I am able to concatenate all of the text formatted columns, but it gives me an error when I include the Contact List formatted column (see attachments). The goal is to create a primary key for each row. It's needed due to the SmartSheet limit on rows at 5k.

This team is tracking they're time spent on tasks by job, person, task type, and date. I'm using Zapier to add new rows and update existing rows into an excel file to store the historical data. To do that, Zapier needs a PK to find an update the existing rows. The person column is one of the most important as I need the report in Smartsheet filtered by person so each person is not privy to everyone else's activities (which by week will be in the thousands). If there is a better solution to this situation, I'm am 100% open to changing my process.

Formula w/ Contact Column "Person"

Result w/ Contact Column "Person"

Formula and Result w/o Contact Column "Person"

Elliot Holder

Ok, figured out the issue. I wasn't using the "" between each inclusion. I'm still open to more efficient solves for storing time entries that may reach into the 10k level every 15 days or less. I would like to use Smartsheet because of the features it has, but Zapier limits it's data pushes based on your membership level and I'm concerned I'll max it out pretty quickly.

Jayesh Nathani

Hi, did you tried using + "" + in between?