There is, however, a couple of methods to do that using addons. In general I highly recommend looking at Advance packages for addons, they open a world of automation and customization beyond the core application.

Below are various mechanisms for managing multiple-contact data in Smartsheet.

Note that by "multiple-contact" I mean a Contact type column with the "Allow multiple contacts per cell" switch turned on in the column properties.

Final note: thank you to @Samuel Mueller for telling me about same-sheet Data Mesh, being great with Bridge, and other general awesomeness. Thanks to @Paul Newcome for being amazing on community and suggesting this post. And my other fellow Overachievers for making Smartsheet fun on the daily!

CORE APPLICATION

The bad news is that there's no way to "build" multiple contacts into a multi-contact column with a formula.

The only thing you can do is hand-type contacts, separated with comma, semicolon, or tab.

You cannot use Automations or Formulas to build a list of contacts.

SHEET SETUP

All the methods below leverage a single sheet with three columns.

• Column 1 is a text/number column. This can be any number of formulas that produce a series of emails, separated by comma or semicolon.
  • For example, if you need to merge multiple columns of emails into one, you'd do something like = JOIN ([Manager]:[VP], ";" ) resulting in "manager@somewhere.com; director@somewhere.com; vp@somewhere.com" in your cell
  • Alternatively, you may be pulling emails together from another sheet with a formula like =JOIN(COLLECT({Email}, {Name}, HAS(Names@row, @cell)), ";") - this formula looks at a second sheet that lists names and emails, and matches the names selected on the first sheet to the names on the second sheet to combine a list of emails. The {} items are cross-sheet references to columns on the second sheet.
  • Note that you need to combine emails, not names. Smartsheet has no way of mapping names like "Brian Richardson" or "Richardson, Brian" to an email address, and therefore will not convert a name to a contact
• Column 2 is a Contact column set to Allow multiple contacts. There's no formula in this column.
• Column 3 is an Autonumber column. If you already have one, you can use that instead of setting up a new one. Or if you have another means to setup a unique identifier for your rows, use that instead. You need a unique identifier on each row.

DATA MESH METHOD

Data Mesh to the rescue! Data Mesh is a paid addon tool for Smartsheet that is very powerful. It is definitely one of the top tools to take your Smartsheet automations to the next level.

Using Data Mesh, you can copy/sync data between two sheets, or between columns in a single sheet. Which is what we'll do here.

Key Value: Data Mesh triggers on changes, so your contacts will update almost immediately. It's also pretty easy to setup.

Key Drawback: not as flexible as Bridge, but pretty close.

1. Open Data Mesh and click New Config
2. For Source: find the sheet with your three columns, select it, and click next
3. For Target: find the same sheet, select it, and click next
4. For Mapping:
   1. Lookup Values: the Autonumber / Unique ID column
   2. Data Field 1 (Source Sheet): the Text/Number column that has your emails in it
   3. Data Field 1 (Target Sheet): the Multiple-Contact column
5. For Options: set Overwrite Existing Data to Yes. Set Execution Frequency to Update Immediately. Other settings can remain as-is.
6. Give your workflow a name and hit Next, then Add

That is all the setup you need. Now, whenever your formula creates or updates a series of email addresses, separated by semicolon/comma in the Text column, Data Mesh will fire and quickly post those emails into the Contact column as separate contacts, one for each email!

BRIDGE METHOD

You can also accomplish this using Bridge. Although somewhat complex to learn, the actual Bridge workflow for this is quite simple.

Key Value: fast and flexible - this workflow can be adjusted to do many more complex things, like looking up your contacts, manipulating the data, integrating contacts with other tools, or even running Javascript to match/map the emails to additional information.

Key Drawback: Bridge doesn't alert you if there's problems (yet), so you'll have to notice if the contacts aren't getting populated as expected.

Here's the setup:

1. You will likely want to Trigger the Bridge workflow when a list of emails is changed, or something similar. You'll need to setup a quick placeholder blank workflow first, then in Triggers under Smartsheet setup a trigger for Column Values changed or maybe Row Updated, depending on your needs. Point the trigger at your new blank workflow.
2. Add the Smartsheet: Get Row step to your workflow with the following settings:
   1. Sheet: {{runtime.sheetID}}
   2. Row: if you used the Row Update trigger, use {{runtime.event.id}}. If you used the Column Values trigger, use {{runtime.event.rowId}}
3. Add the String Tools: Split Text step to your workflow.
   1. Text: {{states.startstate.smartsheet.get_row.row.cells.name of the Text column with emails.value}}
   2. Delimeter: ; or , (whatever you used in the column to separate your email addresses)
4. Add the Smartsheet: Update Row step to your workflow
   1. Sheet: {{runtime.sheetID}}
   2. Row ID: if you used the Row Update trigger, use {{runtime.event.id}}. If you used the Column Values trigger, use {{runtime.event.rowId}}
   3. Cells: Key 1 = name of the Contact column in your sheet set to multiple contacts. Value #1 = {{states.startstate.stringtools.split_text}}

That's it! Now, whenever your comma/semicolon list of emails changes on the sheet, Bridge will read the list, split it back up, and post it into the multiple-contact column.

DATA SHUTTLE METHOD

If you don't have Data Mesh (get it!) or Bridge then you can also use Data Shuttle to accomplish the combination of emails into a multiple-contact column. It's a little more involved.

Key Drawback: Data Shuttle has to run on a schedule, with 15 minute intervals as the minimum. You cannot trigger Data Shuttle to run when your contacts change. And this relies on constant posting of attachments which fills up the attachments panel pretty quickly.

Key Value: it's relatively easy to use the UI for setup, and it alerts you if there's problems.

You will setup 2 workflows… the first will output the emails to a CSV attachment, the second will import that same attachment as contacts.

Workflow 1

1. Open Data Shuttle and click the + sign to start a new workflow
2. Select Offload workflow
3. For Source: select the sheet that you setup in Pre-Setup
4. For Target, select CSV or XLSX format and Attachment. Attachment should be pointed to the same sheet. (note - you can put it elsewhere, it's just cleaner to keep it all in the same sheet. if you put it elsewhere then just note that location, you'll need it for the second workflow). Check the "Add headers" checkbox.
5. Skip to the Mapping screen. Select the Autonumber column and the Text column with the email addresses and hit Next
6. Select Run on schedule and set to every 15 mins or whatever schedule you like
7. Click Next, give the workflow a name, then Save
8. Now Run the workflow that you just created. After a minute or so you should have an attachment on your sheet. You need to do this before doing Workflow 2 setup.

Workflow 2

1. Click the + sign in Data Shuttle to start a new workflow
2. Select Upload workflow
3. For Source: select Attachment, then browse to the sheet that Workflow 1 saved to. Select Most Recent. Data Shuttle should find the attachment from running workflow 1 in step 8 above. Select "This file has column headers".
4. For Target: select the same sheet
5. For Options: select Merge, and check only the Update checkbox
6. For Mapping: select the Autonumber column as the Unique Identifier. The mapping should already have mapped the Text column (with the emails) to itself, remove that mapping by changing to Not Mapped. Add a mapping to set the Source Text column (with the emails) to the Target Contact column.
7. On the next screen select Run on Attachment

That should do it! Now, every 15 minutes, Data Shuttle will grab all the email addresses from the Text column, dump them to a CSV attachment, then import that same attachment to post the email addresses into the contact column and create the multiple-contacts.

This returns: comment1, comment2, comment3, comment4, comment5, comment6, comment7, comment8, comment9

What is missing is the maintenance person's name before each comment.

Where do I add the mechanic/electrician column within the formula?

I tried adding it to the end of the formula, but I get an incorrect argument set error.

Can you please help me get this right?

RECAP: I use a combination of a Successor formula & Join/Collect in an attempt to report for my team the next tasks and assignee(s) in our waterfall workflow. I am able to successfully return the next assignee only when there is a single successor. I need to identify instances where a task has multiple successor assignees, this can be simple text field (doesn't need to be a contact field).

Here are the 3 formulas that nearly fulfill my use case:

=JOIN(COLLECT([Assigned To]:[Assigned To], Row:Row, HAS(Suc@row, @cell)), CHAR(15) + " + ")

=SUBSTITUTE(Successor@row, ", ", CHAR(10))

=JOIN(SUCCESSORS([Task Name]@row), ",")

We use Smartsheet as part of our transfer course evaluation workflow at a four-year institution. We are having to change some things in our workflow, and in setting up new sheets, I am struggling to find out if I can automate a process for my staff.

We have one sheet that is a daily report of all transcripts received by the institution the day before. We have another sheet that sets up a timeline tracker once a student is admitted. And, we have yet another sheet that gathers information on transfer credit appeals from students.

Is there a way that the data from the Transfer Credit Appeals sheet and the Report Sheet can be moved to the Timeline Tracker, wherein it would not create duplicate rows but instead update cell information. In other words, if a student is already in the Timeline Tracker, and they then submit an appeal, could the entry of data on that appeal automatically be recognized by the Tracker and update itself?

We are still very naive in our use of Smartsheet, so any help is appreciated—even if it is that we cannot do that.

I need to Join the content of a Task column into one main cell in another column "Description".

The conditions are: IF [Task] at row CONTAINS "Action Item" and Summary Field is unchecked than JOIN all the text separated by a comma (or even better assign a number to each of the tasks that contain "Action Item").

My attempted formula:

=IF(AND(CONTAINS("Action", Task@row ), [Summary Field]@row = 0), JOIN(Task:Task, " , "), "")

I cannot share screen shots

I would like to collate the names of my ancestors for a task in my "Stage" column, but only if the Hierarchy level of that parent or grandparent is >= 3.

I have tried utilizing the Join(Ancestors(Task@row), " - ") and this returns all of the parent tasks. When I try to utilize an if statement, I get "UNPARSEABLE" or "INCORRECT ARGUMENT SET."

Any help is appreciated.

I'm trying to write a Join Collect Formula that will return the associated departments with a project based on the Owners noted on the project.

The Departments column is a multi-select drop-down, and the Owners column is a Contact List contact.

My reference sheet shows the Department and associated contact(s) that would be connected to that project.

Based on what I saw in the forums, I wrote something like this:

=JOIN(COLLECT({YE Departments}, {YE Department Contact}, HAS(Owner@row, @cell)), ";")

In another post, it looks like there's a way to pull multiple dropdown "tools" based on the name. I'm trying to replicate that, except pulling departments based on all the names in the owner field. Is there something I'm missing?

Formula: =JOIN(COLLECT({Detailed Resource Data Master Range Skills}, {Detailed Resource Data Master Range Emp ID}, [Employee ID@row), ",")

I'm not getting any errors, the value just shows up blank.

Your guidance is appreciated!

Desired Outcome:

Current Outcome:

I am trying to concatenate all fields I find in "Note" on "SourceSheet" and place the conatenated string of text in "CumulativeNotes" on "DestSheet" for each row in "SourceSheet" wherever "DestProj = SourceProj".

I have the following formula to grab one field, and it naturally stops at the first instance it finds because that is how MATCH works:

=INDEX({SoruceSheetTable}, MATCH(DestProject@row, {SoruceSheetSourceProj}, 0), 2)

What do I use to collect and concatenate all notes separated by " - " when the "DestProj = SourceProj" condition is true?

Thank you for your help.