Form requires Email, Sheet shows Name

Ker9

I have a form that specifically requires an Email address (validation is set to Email). Recently, some are coming in as Contact Names rather than email. I've spoken with submitters who state they entered an email address. The form does not allow completion without an email address.

Why is the email showing up as a name in the column? Not always, but very recently it started doing this.

Sometimes, the name has never been entered previously. Others were entered as an email many times, but now shows as a name.

Melissa Yamada

Yes — this can happen even when the submitter entered a valid email.

The important distinction is that email validation only validates that the response is an email address. If the destination column is a Contact List, Smartsheet can resolve that email to a person's contact name and display the name in the cell instead. Smartsheet allows Contact List cells to contain either a contact name or email address.

So if someone enters john.smith@company.com, Smartsheet may recognize that address as a known contact and display John Smith instead. This can happen even if they typed the email themselves and didn't select a name.

If you need the actual email address stored/displayed consistently, I'd use a Text/Number column with Email validation instead of a Contact List column. That keeps the submitted email as text rather than allowing Smartsheet to resolve it to a contact.