Copying names into contact columns doesn't assign

We have about 500 rows in a sheet that need to be assigned daily. A team member will mass copy names from Excel into the contact column of our Smartsheet sheet.

I would like to use the filter by "current user" functionality but, when pasting names in, the contact column does not pick up that the names are actual contacts. Besides going line by line to assign...What can I do to get the Current User filter to work?

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Comments

Mike Wilday

Check to see if email addresses are being assigned with those names. Double-click on a name in the contact column. You also want to be sure that the COLUMN-Type is set for Contact List type.

For help on column types see: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/504619-column-types

tobrien3

Hey Mike -

The names being pasted do match up exactly with the names in the contact list. The names do not link with the email address when they are pasted in. The column type is a contact list.

Mike Wilday

I have a pretty strong feeling that the "Current User" ties the email addresses in the contact list column with the users email address when they log in. Try populating the email addresses of a user or two and then try testing. Although the current user setting does not produce any results unless you are the current user... Meaning, you won't see any users if your name is not on the list.

tobrien3

Thanks Mike! Using the email address does work. That will be our solution if it is not possible to get the functionality with copy + pasting names.

Mike Wilday

I don't believe it is... but the good thing is that once you populate a name with an email, the rest of the fields with the same name should have the email auto populate as well.

Mike Wilday

You should do a find and replace in your excel document to replace the names with emails before copying and pasting. That might speed up the job.

michael_hostetler85551

I'm running into the same or similar issue. I am copying contact names from Excel into a Smartsheet contacts column. The paste does not update to reflect that the user is already in Smartsheet. I expect the cell to have the shaded circle with their first initial/last initial to appear...it doesn't. I have tried the name (first name space last name format) and the email address and the Contact field does not update, or "register" that the user is valid. So a scan down through the column, the user appears in 2 different formats. One - if added manually, appears correctly with the shaded circle/initials. Two - appears as an email address. Then when I create a report that I want to filter on the person, I have to scan through the list and select her twice. Thoughts?