Contact List Dropdown - Adding multiple contacts to the list at once

Melisa Dannhauser · 07/15/20

有办法联系人导入联系人list column in a specific sheet? I know you can import a list of contacts to the SS account but I have 2,000+ contacts that need to be added as a dropdown in a specific sheet (a contact list column). I'm assuming there is no direct way to import the list into that specific column or I would have found the answer by googling. Any good workarounds?

I did find that if I copy/paste the emails into a text column and then convert the column to a contact list, then it adds the emails to my contact list in that column as desired. The only issue is that when I do it that way, the contacts only have emails but not the names. Is there ANY way to automatically add multiple contacts (emails AND names) to a contact list dropdown without having to type them out one by one? I certainly don't want to type in over 2,000 names and emails one by one.

Thanks!

Paul Newcome · 07/16/20

Have you tried copy/pasting the names directly into the column properties?

Melisa Dannhauser · 07/16/20

Yes, you cannot copy paste in it, see my screenshot. You have to enter the values in the "values" section

Paul Newcome · 07/16/20

Ah. Ok. What about using the names instead of the emails with the copy/paste into a text column then converting to a contact column?

Melisa Dannhauser · 07/16/20

I can do that but then I won't have the emails. The problem is I need both.

Paul Newcome · 07/16/20

Oh. I wasn't sure if doing it that way would convert them to contacts or not. I don't use contact type columns very often, so at this point I am just trying to see what has and has not been tested. Sorry about that.

Susan Vieira · 08/26/20

@Melisa DannhauserI just asked this very question (I clearly did not search hard enough for an answer here as I did not find your question until about 5 hours after posting mine) Did you ever find a solution because I am in the same boat with over 1700 names/emails to enter and going one by one is not happening. So silly that we can't paste a list of contacts.

Paul M · 10/15/20

Same issue - any solutions?

If you have multiple contact columns, for eg: Raised by, Owner, Assigned to

You should not have to create a new contacts drop down individually for each column one contact at a time??!!

Melisa Dannhauser · 10/15/20

Paul M,

I don't think there's a perfect solution. I ended up using the workaround that I mentioned in my original post. Copying the contact list into a text column, then converting that column into a contact column. That populates it but only the email portion. The names still have to be added one by one.

James Santos · 01/19/21

I was able to do it by:

added all my contacts in bulk
change the column to a single select drop down
add all the emails and click OK
Then convert it back to contacts. Then they all appeared in the list.

katfooddfw · 01/23/21

I find this to be a problem, too. My workaround is a master sheet with people's names in one column and their addresses in another.

Then when I build sheets, I have one column with a dropdown list with the names of the people, and a column with the formula below that references my master contact sheet:

=VLOOKUP(this is my ref column, {master contact sheet reference Range 1}, 2, false)

I then hide that column but I use that to reference any automation. That way I can see the people's names and the emails still get to them. Not the best solution, but it works at some level.

Donna Ross · 03/09/21

I have just submitted this as a feature request. Hope others will do the same so this gets prioritized.

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form?EQBCT=739aa75f30ca43a8a22eb53e4da7d409&_ga=2.211329106.678211694.1615313828-1839182616.1615313828

J Adrian · 03/26/21

I got it to work using the following workaround turned my column into a drop down, pasting my list of emails there, and then converting it to a contact list.

Use the following format for your copy paste

FirstName LastName,

It will list the names in a dropdown for contacts on a form.

Stefan Maurice · 04/02/21

I just tried the same as J Adrian and succeeded, with one minor tweak: adding an extra space after LastName. So I used a Dropdown Single Select list of values in the format:

FirstName LastName

And then changed that Dropdown Single Select column to a Contact List (populated with both names and email addresses)

Ramon Smitherman1 · 07/30/21

I have tried the solutions above. On some sheets it works, while on other sheets, it is not working.

I am spending about as much time fiddling around with smartsheet as I would if I just wrote the the app on our portal system.

In the back of my mind I am continually reminded that since I can not reference a list of contacts, I will have to repeat this fiddling activity on every form I use that references contacts.

It is kind of like digging a whole and wondering the whole time when it will get too deep to crawl out of.

Philippe Hill · 09/17/21

I found a solution by combining the above. It helps that I am the company admin, so I ran a report that gave me all the names in excel format, then I applied the Contact/drop down technique mentioned above. Also with the excel sheet you can filter out those who are not needed.

Contact List Dropdown - Adding multiple contacts to the list at once

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