I'm creating a flow that will generate new personnel folders using document sets in SharePoint. I can populate the individual name fields (First, Middle, Last, Suffix); however, I want to have columns that will contain the first and last name or full name. Since people can also create personnel folders manually, I wanted the full name columns to be calculated. So when creating a folder they only have to enter the First, Middle Last, Suffix and then the full name columns will automatically populate.
I'm having an issue formatting the SharePoint calculated column and want to make sure it is correct before I set this as a content type and use it on all the folders.
I found plenty of examples which were merging only the first and last name exactly like the Microsoft Support Examples of Common Formulas ; but I could not find any examples where the middle name was included accounting for if someone doesn’t have a middle name.
If the person has a first and last name without the middle and the formula [FIRST_NAME]&” “&[MIDDLE_NAME]&” “&[LAST_NAME] would result in double spaces in between the first and last name.
I also need to account for input error where a space is included before or after the name, or a space is the only value in the field. For example when the name is entered into the fields, instead of putting a middle name or leaving blank they type a space. This would cause the field to not be blank and if using the standard merge calculation there would now be 3 spaces between first and last name.
I went through trial and error to find the formula that would work on a test sharepoint. My end result is a long formula checking for ISBlank while trimming any additional spaces and adding a space between names. The only way I could finally get it to work is by wrapping the entire formula in a TRIM() so that any additional spaces added by the merge would be removed.
Basically it checks if the field is blank, if so then add a space " ", if not then add the FieldName with a space in front, ex. " "&TRIM(FieldName).
My final formula:
TRIM(TRIM([FIRST_NAME])&IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([MIDDLE_NAME]))," "," "&TRIM([MIDDLE_NAME]))&IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([LAST_NAME]))," "," "&TRIM([LAST_NAME]))&IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([NAME_SUFF]))," "," "&TRIM([NAME_SUFF])))- The first trim will wrap the entire name formula TRIM(
- TRIM([FIRST_NAME])&
- IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([MIDDLE_NAME]))," "," "&TRIM([MIDDLE_NAME]))&
- IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([LAST_NAME]))," "," "&TRIM([LAST_NAME]))&
- IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([NAME_SUFF]))," "," "&TRIM([NAME_SUFF]))
- ) Closing initial trim
Below is a screenshot of each type of test names, the character lengths, result of ISBLANK, and result of ISNULL.
Below are the names from the example. I'm using an underscore _ to represent spaces " " in field names. Blanks are when there is no value entered in the field.
- Willow Sarah Eastwood PHD
- Willow Eastwood PHD
- Willow Eastwood
- Blank Space Middle Name: Willow _ Eastwood PHD
- Blank Space in Middle and Suffix: Willow _ Eastwood _
- Blank Spaces in All Names: _ _ _ _
- All Names Not Filled Left Blank: blank blank blank blank
- First Name Only: Willow blank blank blank
- Last Name Only: blank blank Eastwood blank
- Trailing spaces on names: Willow_ Sarah_ Eastwood_ PHD_
Is there an easier way than a long validation formula? Is there a reason I can't find more examples of this issue? Are there name inputs that would cause errors or #Value from the formula?
Accepted Solutions
For reference here is the initial test which I just used the basic Text&" "&Text formula as used in the microsoft examples and other general name combine examples I found. It basically adds additional spaces and only works if every name field is filled in correctly.
I had to test different formulas so I added columns the SP List and replaced the test formulas each time. The sharepoint column CombineFormula is where the results of the name joins. I used the column "Double Space in Combine Formula" to check for any additional spaces between words within the final CombineFormula. I also added columns to check the length and see if it was blank.
=[FIRST_NAME]&" "&[MIDDLE_NAME]&" "&[LAST_NAME]&" "&[NAME_SUFF]
These are the results in SharePoint and Excel. You can see the additional spaces better in the excel names.
Here is the results after making the final formula calculated column CombineFormula. I was using the column "Double Space in Combine Formula" to see if there were any additional spaces between words or within the final CombineFormula. It also checked the length and if it was blank. I don't understand why the zero 0 length final don't count as ISBLANK.
=TRIM(TRIM([FIRST_NAME])&IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([MIDDLE_NAME]))," "," "&TRIM([MIDDLE_NAME]))&IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([LAST_NAME]))," "," "&TRIM([LAST_NAME]))&IF(ISBLANK(TRIM([NAME_SUFF]))," "," "&TRIM([NAME_SUFF])))
The first thing I would check is the column internal names. It can be different than what is shown on the display name. There has also been a change in how SharePoint deals with spaces in column names. So you need to go check and see what it shows for your column internal name and use that in the formula.
I'm guessing that if you created the column named "Courtney Housing", the sharepoint internal column name is "CourtneyHousing" without a space in the middle. It used to replace spaces with _x0020_ and the internal column name would be "Courtney_x0020_Housing".
In my example below I created a new column called "My - New_Column Name". The sharepoint internal column name can be seen in the address bar as "My_x002d_New_ColumnName". This is because it removed the spaces and encoded the special character dash "-" as _x002d_ in the name.
Note: If I was to rename this column to say "My Favorite Column", the internal column name does not change and would still be addressed as "My_x002d_New_ColumnName". The internal column name doesn't change if you rename the column. That is considered changing the display name.
So go to your column settings and look at the internal column name for each of your columns, and then use that in your formula and see if it makes a difference.
Helpful resources
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