Separating Contacts column into First and Last name

Platform discussions monday CRM
1

Hello,

We set up a Contacts board as part of the Basic CRMs feature. Is there a way to separate the contact column - someone’s full name - into a First and Last name column through an automation? Thank you!

2

Hi! As outlined in this post, you can separate them through two formula columns.

The first column should contain this formula:

LEFT({Name}, SEARCH(" ", {Name})-1)

And the second column should contain this one:

RIGHT({Name}, LEN({Name})- SEARCH(" ", {Name}))

3

Thank you! Is there a way to adjust the formula to capture middle names or first names with two names?

4

@JCorrell Hi ! I saw some other formulas you wrote on other threads, but none of those worked.

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We need a last name - with only the last name, is there a way to do this? Currently in this snip: RIGHT({Name}, LEN({Name})- SEARCH(" ", {Name})) is the Claimant last name - but as you can see it shows everything to the right of the first name. I tried ones from this thread too and they did not work: First name, Last Name Split in first column. Would you be able to help?

5

@Rach12

Try this:

REGEXEXTRACT({Name},".*?(\w*)$")

Jim - The Monday Man
Get Custom Apps, Integrations & Automations for monday

1 Like
6

Hi Jim, this works perfectly!! Thank you so much for your assistance! :+1:

7

Hi Jim, This is very helpful. How do I reverse this formula to capture the first name of the contact?

Thank you!!!

8

Hi Jim,
I figured it out!!

REGEXEXTRACT({Name},“.?(\w)?”)

Doug

1 Like
9

LOL same timing…Thank you! Only to find out I can’t use a formula in an automation :frowning:

All I’ve been trying to do is respond to customers inbound email “request for information” with their first name…, (I thought this formula would do it)

Doug

1 Like
10

Hi I am in a similar situation.

I have the CRM as well and under the contacts I want the first name as an option when using the email fields so that we can be less formal with our known clients.

How do I use the formula in the email feature?

1 Like
11

I’m in the same situation… My emails would say “Dear John Smith” instead of “Dear John”… Did anybody found a solution?

12

I just separate them on excel and then upload to new fields named FName and LName - it has been working for me.

13

I’ve had the same issue for a while and discovered the work around via the Monday.com AI.

  1. Keep the item name as the full name (this will allow you to differentiate people with the same first name).

  2. Create two text columns (or one if only the first name is relevant), one labelled first name and the other labelled last name.

  3. Right-click the column title and select Autofill with AI.

  4. Set the AI action as Custom action.

  5. Type instructions along the lines of “add the first name from [select variable from dropdown, should be Item Name]” and do the same for the last name column.

  6. Every time you add an item with their full name the AI will autofill the first and last name columns.

As it is autofilled as text and not a formula, you can use these columns as variable when sending out emails. The variable won’t be the item name but the first name column.

Few things to note:

  1. I am using the CRM product on the Pro plan. I do not know if the AI is available on lower plans or other products.
  2. It won’t autofill retrospectively, so you will need to re-enter the item names to split them (this can be time consuming as it won’t autofill if the item name is the same, e.g., copying and pasting the same name won’t activate the autofill. You need to change the name and change it back - you can delete a letter from the name, hit enter, and change it back and it activates the autofill).
  3. Middle names and two word last names without hyphens do not appear. You will need to specify in your custom AI instructions that you want to keep this information on the last name column.

Edited post to simplify instructions on activating autofill on pre-existing items on boards.

14

I’ve signed up for the Pro Plan but I’m not seeing the AI option. This seems like it should be a simple automation.

15

Hi Mike,

I agree it should be much easier to do this.

I am not sure how they have rolled out the AI. This wasn’t an option for us a couple of months ago. It may be worth raising a ticket with support and seeing if this is a feature they can switch on.

16

I looked in the admin panel and the AI function is on…so convoluted.