Automatically Select Contact With Column Formula

Eric Strashin

Hi,

I am fairly new to smartsheet so I apologize if this is a basic question.

I am trying to automatically populate a contact column with a single contact indefinitely. For context, it's just so that in a separate report that pulls from many sheets, a filter that only allows a row assigned to a contact to be shown can be applied.

I understand that when referencing a contact in a formula, you have to reference a contact cell that has been manually selected. For example you couldn't select a contact with the following formula:

IF([Task Name]@row, "Eric")

Since this would just print Eric and not select the contact named Eric.

To populate all the rows that aren't empty I used the ISBLANK condition and I tried to create a column formula that referenced a filled out contact cell in another column:

IF(ISBLANK([Task Name]@row), " ", Contact1)

But it gave me an error because you can't select to always reference a single cell in a column formula and it has to reference a cell @row.

Finally the only solution that worked was to create a separate "Contact Book" sheet which had a filled out contact cell:

=IF(ISBLANK([Task Name]@row), " ", {Contact Book Range 2}

This seems crazy that I have to create a separate sheet to reference just to populate an entire column with the same contact. Is there something I'm missing, or any easier ways of accomplishing this?

All help is appreciated!

Andrée Starå

Hi @Eric Strashin

I hope you're well and safe!

You can use the Sheet Summary feature, and link that to the column, and make it a column formula.

Make sense?

Did that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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