Contact Column - send alert when invalid data is entered in a cell

Staylo95

Hello!

I have built a workflow that revolves around the submission of a form that triggers automated alerts to the contacts in a cell. My issue is that sometimes the form submitter accidently types in a name instead of an email, is there a way to set up an alert when this happens?

It's important to my process that the alerts be sent promptly and it can take hours for someone to notice that there is an error in the cell.

Dale Murphy

@Staylo95 You want to check for something that looks like an email address?

Maybe look for the @ symbol. Every email address has one:

=IF(FIND("@", [Column37]@row) = 0, "No email", "Okay")

If the email address has to be in your domain, then expand the find string as long as you can to make that check more reliable.

=IF(FIND("@mydomain.ca", Column37@row) = 0, "No email", "Okay")

Then build an alert workflow to check for "No Email" in your equivalent to Column 37.

Not foolproof, but an improvement maybe?

Cheers,

Dale

Andrée Starå

Hi @Staylo95

To add to Dale's excellent advice/answer.

You could also add a so-called helper column (that you can hide in the sheet), and add it to the form, and use conditional logic to show it with a message like, Please make sure that you've added an email address! when then the field doesn't contain @, or similar.

Make sense?

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic weekend!

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!

Dale Murphy

@Staylo95 You want to check for something that looks like an email address?

Maybe look for the @ symbol. Every email address has one:

=IF(FIND("@", [Column37]@row) = 0, "No email", "Okay")

If the email address has to be in your domain, then expand the find string as long as you can to make that check more reliable.

=IF(FIND("@mydomain.ca", Column37@row) = 0, "No email", "Okay")

Then build an alert workflow to check for "No Email" in your equivalent to Column 37.

Not foolproof, but an improvement maybe?

Cheers,

Dale

Andrée Starå

Hi @Staylo95

To add to Dale's excellent advice/answer.

You could also add a so-called helper column (that you can hide in the sheet), and add it to the form, and use conditional logic to show it with a message like, Please make sure that you've added an email address! when then the field doesn't contain @, or similar.

Make sense?

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic weekend!

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!

Andrée Starå

More info.

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2481701-use-conditional-logic-to-streamline-form-submissions

Staylo95

Thanks both of you, this will help me catch at least some errors. I don't think I can completely error proof this one unfortunately.

I have had some people copying and pasting an email from outlook which means it shows up in the column as sarah.taylor <sarah.taylor@libro.ca> instead of registering as a contact. I wish it would return as a contact expected error.

Andrée Starå

@Staylo95

Excellent!

You're more than welcome!

You could maybe structure a formula that converts that format to an email address format that would work.

✅Remember! 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!