How do we remove people from Contact List dropdowns that aren't in our user database?

Susan Peck

We maintain our unlicensed users through the User Admin function to limit access to sheets. When someone leaves the company, we remove their sharing privileges.

However, we are seeing names on Contact List dropdowns that are no longer in the user database. These contact lists are not limited to a certain set of people through properties, because that would be too much work to maintain (we need to allow anyone in the user database to be selected for any assignment).

Is there a way to remove a person's name from a dropdown list when the list is not limited to a certain set of people? If not, any idea why this person's name is still showing up? Where could we look to purge the name?

Thanks for the help.

Mike Wilday

I would check to see if their name exists elsewhere in the sheet. If their name exists earlier on in the sheet that can sometimes lead to names continuing to exist in the list. I've seen this when we did a domain name change at our company. To remove some users with old domains in the dropdown list we had to go through and change all the contacts with the old domain in the sheet. You can use a filter to quickly look for those contacts and either 1) Remove them, or 2) add a qualifier like "DO NOT USE" before their name.

Mike Wilday

I would check to see if their name exists elsewhere in the sheet. If their name exists earlier on in the sheet that can sometimes lead to names continuing to exist in the list. I've seen this when we did a domain name change at our company. To remove some users with old domains in the dropdown list we had to go through and change all the contacts with the old domain in the sheet. You can use a filter to quickly look for those contacts and either 1) Remove them, or 2) add a qualifier like "DO NOT USE" before their name.

Susan Peck

Hi Mike,

That was exactly the case. We have some older projects in the sheet that are still active and include that person's name. I'll see if the DO NOT USE option would help people.

You've answered the head scratcher question of the day!

Thank you,

susan

Mike Wilday

You're welcome! People will be less likely to use the option with that phrase in front of his name.

You could also replace his name with stop-type emojis. 🚫 🛑 which will help detour people from selecting that option.