Contact column

Thibault P

Hello,

I have a problème with contact columns. I don't understand why, sometimes, for a same contact, the cell display one time the first and the last name (what I want), and an other time, the mail adress :

Do you know what's the problem ?

Thank you for your help !

Michele Thomas

Hi @Thibault P

I have gone back and just retyped it so it was similar. Not the best answer but I have had this issue too in the past. I think there is a better answer to this issue though...I just don't know what it is.

Thibault P

Thank you for your answer Michele.

Someone else ?

Genevieve P.

Hi @Thibault P

How are the contacts entered into the cell? Are they manually typed/selected from the Contact List, is it chosen from a form, or by a formula, or some other way? This may help to find out why you are seeing some inconsistencies.

Thibault P

Hi Genevieve,

The contact are entered manually from the Contact list

For example, these contacts are in my contact list :

But in some action plans (but not all of them, weird...), , if I want put "Didier", the cell display the mail adress :

Thank you for your help.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Thibault P

I was able to replicate this by opening a contact in the sheet and removing their name so it was just the email. Then, even though they were in my Smartsheet contacts, when I went to add them to a new cell it only showed the email without the name (since the contact was selected earlier in the sheet without a name associated).

To change this, I first made sure I could select the name with the email. Keep typing in the cell until the entire name is written out and the correct contact should show up in your drop-down menu to select instead of the one without a name. (You could also double-click on the email and a small window will pop up where you can add the correct name back in for that one specific cell.)

Then I used the Find & Replace function to replace any instance of just the email address with the username associated with the email.

Before:

After:

If you didn't want to do this, the sheet is still reading the contact correctly even if it displays just the email: it will function as if the email has a name, sending emails/alerts/notifications, etc, to the correct user.

Hope this helps!

-Genevieve

Thibault P

Hi @Genevieve P ,

Sorry for this late answer.

Thank you very much for your help, nothing to add ! Now I understand and it works !

Thibault P