Using the "assigned to" filter criteria for reports

Brian Benn

How does the logged in User have to be represented in the sheet column in order for the "assigned to" filter to work in generating a report. I currently am just using initials for the sheet and for space and easy reading, would like to keep it as short and simple as possible.

Malaina Hudson

Hi, @Brian Benn ,

I think the key to that might be in your contacts library. When you start adding contacts, you can edit their name differently as long as it's tied to the appropriate user email. You can only have an email in your contacts list once, but you don't have to use a full name.

Example below - you can see that I use "test this" as a dummy user and it's tied to an email. You could just input the name as AB, TB, RF, etc., so only initials display in the box.

If you want update the name later, you only need to go to My Smartsheet Contacts and update the name. This WILL update your contacts in smartsheets, so it might not suit.

Also, a potential gotcha on this. If you are using automations with tokens, the token will display the entry in the contact field - so {{Assigned To}}, you have work to do, would appear in the notification as test this, you have work to do if test this is the assigned to. People could be miffed that you only use their initials - and if you have people with the same initials, this will get confusing over time. Duplicate initials is a thorn in my side regularly - I have a team of 30 and 3 of us have the initials MH - we can't tell who's logged into which meetings where the initial tokens are used and no photos or other identifiers are available.

Hope this helps!