Prepopulating a contact list field in a form when the link to the form is clicked.

julieg

I'm requiring that the users login to smartsheet. There email is being captured in the Created By column. Is it possible to pre-populate the contact list field on the form when they click on the form link?

There is only one form link - so i would not be adding there contact info/email to the form link to populate the field.

I'm trying to use an INDEX MATCH formula but running into problems. Where would the formula reside? In the Contact list column (Talent) or in another helper column "Directory Email Column" to make this happen. And what type of column should the helper column "Directory Email Column" be? Text/Number column?

=INDEX([Talent]:[Talent], MATCH([Created by]@row, [Directory Email Column]:[Directory Email Column], 0))

If i understand correctly, this should be possible, but I'm unable to see the results.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

julieg

Andrée Starå

Hi @julieg

I hope you're well and safe!

Not sure I follow!

Can you describe your process in more detail and maybe share the sheet(s)/copies of the sheet(s) or some screenshots? (Delete/replace any confidential/sensitive information before sharing) That would make it easier to help. (share too, andree@workbold.com)

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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julieg

Hi Andree - Thank you for your response.

I apologize for not being more clear. I'm attaching two screen shots. One is the smartsheet, the other is the form that needs to have a field populated when a link to the form is clicked. As i mentioned before, users are required to login to SmartSheet allowing us to capture their email.

To sum this up - A user accesses the form via a link. When the link is clicked we populate the highlighted field. The highlighted field on the form is a contact list drop down.

How do we get that field populated with a contact based on the email we captured during the login to SmartSheet? I'm assuming we need to use the email from the Created By column. What type of formula do we need to accomplish this and where would the formula be? Created By column? Talent Column (contact list) or another helper column that i may need?

I hope this makes sense. Here are the screen shots (confidential info is blocked out)

thank you for all the help

julieg

Andrée Starå

@julieg

Happy to help!

You don't need to catch the email if it's the same populated in the created column. You'd use a formula in the sheet to show it in another column if needed.

Make sense, or do I misunderstand your use case?

julieg

Hi Andree,

The "Created By" Column is a system column that captures the email when they login to smartsheets. We would need to use the captured email address and match it to the Talent Column which is a contact list column. How else can we identify the correct person to populate their contact list info in the form without that email being captured?

The field on the form we are populating is using a contact list (Talent Column) which shows there name and their email address which you can see in the screen shot.

The question is how do we populate that field with the correct contact list info from the Talent Column.

The form field should be populated when they open the form via the hyperlink.

I hope this makes sense when looking at the screenshots.

Thank you for your patience and help.

julieg

julieg

Hi Andree,

The "Created By" Column is a system column that captures the email when they login to smartsheets. We would need to use the captured email address and match it to the Talent Column which is a contact list column. How else can we identify the correct person to populate their contact list info in the form without that email being captured?

The field on the form we are populating is using a contact list (Talent Column) which shows there name and their email address which you can see in the screen shot.

The question is how do we populate that field with the correct contact list info from the Talent Column.

The form field should be populated when they open the form via the hyperlink.

I hope this makes sense when looking at the screenshots.

Thank you for your patience and help.

julieg

julieg

Hello Andree, I realize that i could use a URL Query String to specify different default Values for a form or form field. However, if i understand correctly this would mean creating a different URL Query String for each user, in this case over 50 users.

What i need to do is have one URL only that will specify a default value for the form field in question (Contact List Column) for the user who accesses the form via the URL.

Does this make sense?

Thanks for the help.

julieg

Andrée Starå

@julieg

How are they getting the link/accessing the form?

julieg

Hello Andree,

Currently they are simply accessing the form link that we provide them either located in Microsoft teams or simply sending them the URL

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/f9f1180ffebb4ee68d59403c90d81633

Thanks

julieg

Andrée Starå

@julieg

Ok.

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to identify who the submitter is before it arrives on the sheet, so my recommendation would be to either rely on the sheet if possible or use the URL-query feature to create a personal link for everyone.

Would that work?

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julieg

Thank you Andree for all of the help.

I do have one question for you. Would Dynamic View allow me to accomplish what i asked about?

*Using one URL link for everyone and populate the form field with the contact list info for the user who accesses the form link?

We are considering purchasing Dynamic view or an Enterprise license.

thank you again for time and patience.

julieg

Andrée Starå

@julieg

You're more than welcome!

I would like to understand your need in more detail to see if I might have a workaround (I have some ideas), and I'd be happy to schedule a free discovery call to discuss further.

How does that sound?

Please e-mail me at andree@workbold.com, and we will take it from there.