Contact List Dropdown - Adding multiple contacts to the list at once

Melisa Dannhauser

Is there a way to import contacts into a contact list column in a specific sheet? I know you can import a list of contacts to the SS  account but I have 2,000+ contacts that need to be added as a dropdown in a specific sheet (a contact list column). I'm assuming there is no direct way to import the list into that specific column or I would have found the answer by googling. Any good workarounds?

I did find that if I copy/paste the emails into a text column and then convert the column to a contact list, then it adds the emails to my contact list in that column as desired. The only issue is that when I do it that way, the contacts only have emails but not the names. Is there ANY way to automatically add multiple contacts (emails AND names) to a contact list dropdown without having to type them out one by one? I certainly don't want to type in over 2,000 names and emails one by one.

Thanks! 

Paul Newcome

Have you tried copy/pasting the names directly into the column properties?

Melisa Dannhauser

Yes, you cannot copy paste in it, see my screenshot. You have to enter the values in the "values" section

Paul Newcome

Ah. Ok. What about using the names instead of the emails with the copy/paste into a text column then converting to a contact column?

Melisa Dannhauser

I can do that but then I won't have the emails. The problem is I need both.

Paul Newcome

Oh. I wasn't sure if doing it that way would convert them to contacts or not. I don't use contact type columns very often, so at this point I am just trying to see what has and has not been tested. Sorry about that.

Susan Vieira

@Melisa Dannhauser I just asked this very question (I clearly did not search hard enough for an answer here as I did not find your question until about 5 hours after posting mine) Did you ever find a solution because I am in the same boat with over 1700 names/emails to enter and going one by one is not happening. So silly that we can't paste a list of contacts.

Paul M

Same issue - any solutions?

If you have multiple contact columns, for eg: Raised by, Owner, Assigned to

You should not have to create a new contacts drop down individually for each column one contact at a time??!!

Melisa Dannhauser

Paul M,

I don't think there's a perfect solution. I ended up using the workaround that I mentioned in my original post. Copying the contact list into a text column, then converting that column into a contact column. That populates it but only the email portion. The names still have to be added one by one.

James Santos

I was able to do it by:

1. added all my contacts in bulk
2. change the column to a single select drop down
3. add all the emails and click OK
4. Then convert it back to contacts. Then they all appeared in the list.

katfooddfw

I find this to be a problem, too. My workaround is a master sheet with people's names in one column and their addresses in another.

Then when I build sheets, I have one column with a dropdown list with the names of the people, and a column with the formula below that references my master contact sheet:

=VLOOKUP(this is my ref column, {master contact sheet reference Range 1}, 2, false)

I then hide that column but I use that to reference any automation. That way I can see the people's names and the emails still get to them. Not the best solution, but it works at some level.

Donna Ross

I have just submitted this as a feature request. Hope others will do the same so this gets prioritized.

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form?EQBCT=739aa75f30ca43a8a22eb53e4da7d409&_ga=2.211329106.678211694.1615313828-1839182616.1615313828

J Adrian

I got it to work using the following workaround turned my column into a drop down, pasting my list of emails there, and then converting it to a contact list. 

Use the following format for your copy paste

FirstName LastName<email.domain.com>,

It will list the names in a dropdown for contacts on a form.

Stefan Maurice

I just tried the same as J Adrian and succeeded, with one minor tweak: adding an extra space after LastName. So I used a Dropdown Single Select list of values in the format:

FirstName LastName <email.domain.com>

And then changed that Dropdown Single Select column to a Contact List (populated with both names and email addresses)

Ramon Smitherman1

I have tried the solutions above. On some sheets it works, while on other sheets, it is not working.

I am spending about as much time fiddling around with smartsheet as I would if I just wrote the the app on our portal system.

In the back of my mind I am continually reminded that since I can not reference a list of contacts, I will have to repeat this fiddling activity on every form I use that references contacts.

It is kind of like digging a whole and wondering the whole time when it will get too deep to crawl out of.

Philippe Hill

I found a solution by combining the above. It helps that I am the company admin, so I ran a report that gave me all the names in excel format, then I applied the Contact/drop down technique mentioned above. Also with the excel sheet you can filter out those who are not needed.