Contact List Field in the New Logical Forms

cthrasher97141 · 05/07/20

I have a grid with a Contact List Column and I have imported all of my contacts from Outlook, in the grid the field will start suggesting contacts as I type. I created a form from the grid but when I launch the form and start typing in the contact field nothing is populating from my imported contact list, what am I missing?

Andrée Starå · 05/07/20

Hi,

You’ll have to add the ones that should be available to select to the selectable list.

Make sense?

Would that work?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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cthrasher97141 · 05/07/20

The field populates correctly if I edit the project sheet but it doesn't in the form with that field. I have already imported all of my contacts from Outlook into my Smartsheet Contacts.

To test this I added a new column to the project sheet defined as a contact list type.

, and saved. I went to the first row in the new field and started typing and my contacts started to populate, give suggestions. I added this field to a form created from this project and saved. I opened the form and started typing in the field and nothing happens.

Andrée Starå · 05/07/20

They have to be added to the list to be available for selection in a form.

More info:

If you’ve set up preferred contacts in the contact column, you’ll be able to quickly access them by clicking the dropdown arrow

in a Contact list cell or corresponding Smartsheet form field—In the cell, you’ll also see contacts and email addresses that have been assigned to other rows on the sheet.

NOTE: A Smartsheet Form field associated with a contact column will only include preferred contacts. If no preferred contacts have been set, anyone submitting through the form must type the contact’s name or email address rather than selecting from a list.

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2480241-column-type-reference#contactlist

cthrasher97141 · 05/07/20

So what works in the sheet to auto resolve does not work in the form. I am just confused because it did work that way before if I setup my contacts in the profile????

Kathryn Whiteley · 05/13/20

This is disappointing and really should be fixed.

In our organization, we use contact fields to select anyone in the org -- that is about 1500 people. I cannot add 1500 people specifically to the sheet just so they'll show up for auto-fill in a form -- not to mention that the 1500 people are auto-provisioned into our contacts. When people come and go from the org, they're automatically available from a contact column. Help.

Sorry Smartsheet. This is a fail as far as I'm concerned.

Jared Davis · 05/27/20

I second everyone's thoughts here. What needs to happen IMHO is to create a contact list as a separate sheet. In my case foreman assigned to a construction project. Question 1 in the form asks what project they are on. Question 2 is their name. The options for question 2 pull from the contact list for that project. That way all anyone has to do is keep the contact list sheet up to date.

This would make automation a snap because you can set it up to send the info to the assigned to column, which is populated with options from the contact list sheet...

Let's go.

Caitlin Smith · 02/18/21

@Jared Davis You are dead on right. Any single select/multiple select should be able to use use a reference to the list rather than have the list in the drop down definition. (The equivalent of using a named range in excel). This a major deficiency. Is there any add on that enables this capability?

AdamStemper · 08/30/22

Any updates on this? It's been 2 years and it looks like we still have to manually select all contacts , on every form that we want a contact list.

Kirk Midkiff · 03/31/23

Any updates. This is still a major issue to scale this solution across my organization. Thanks.

MelissaSan · 06/28/23

Agreed, this is hugely frustrating and a major drawback of Smartsheets. I can't believe they have not addressed it yet as it clearly would benefit many organizations.

Contact List Field in the New Logical Forms

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