Skip to main content

Get Support
Have a question? Let's get you an answer!

How Do I...? Troubleshooting Code & Webhooks Developer Zone

Other Help Resources
Wait, there's more! Check out these Community sourced spaces for additional resources.

Zapier Help Center Hire an Expert

Learning Resources
All of our best learning resources can be found here.

Featured Articles Show & Tell Zapier's products AI Hub Zapier Tools Hub

Share your knowledge
Give back to the Community by sharing your automation wins and helping to answer questions.

Share your success See unanswered questions User Groups

Other Learning Resources
Some of our favorite additional ways to upskill your Zapier knowledge.

Zapier Learn Zapier Blog Zapier Webinars

Product Updates
Check out what is new and upcoming with Zapier with our regular product updates.

Product Updates

Early Access Program
Want to join Early Access? Learn more here.

  • Home
  • Get Help
  • How Do I
  • What are best practices for separating first and last name using Formatter: Split Text?

I’m setting up formatter: split text to separate a full name field into a first and last name field. I am using the Segment Index: All (as Separate Fields). This is my setup:

First Name: Item 1
Last Name: Item 2

I think it will work great when people just enter a first and last name:

First Name: Stephen
Last Name: Strange

My fear is that people will occasionally enter titles and additional names. Would Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange become:

First Name: Dr.
Last Name: Stephen

Would I lose all of the extra data? What is the best practice here? Without some sort of name-parsing AI - I think the best outcome would be letting the extra fields get added to the last name field somehow. What would that look like?

or is there an option to pass text with more than 2 segments in a different way? I could have these flagged for manual review into our CRM. 

And if any of this is possible will it require a lot of extra tasks? The way I have it set up - it should just be one task.

Any best practices or tips / tricks would be appreciated!

Hi @Hugaluga 

Good question.

Check out this topic:

 

@Troy Tessalone thank you! The thread you linked was super helpful.

I’m not super confident in my JavaScript, but I think this modified version of your code should split 2 part names and pass longer names to us in a separate field for manual entry (our CRM will alert us).

const WordCount = inputData.NameFull.trim().split(' ').length; // counts full name words

if (WordCount > 2) {
  let NameError = "Manual entry required: " + inputData.NameFull; // adds manual entry note to full name
  output = u{NameError}];
} else {
  let NameFull = inputData.NameFull.trim().split(' '); // removes whitespace and splits by spaces
  let NameFirst = NameFulle0]; // takes first array item
  let NameLast = NameFulleNameFull.length - 1]; // takes last array item
  output = u{NameFirst, NameLast}];
}

If you see anything wrong, please let me know; Otherwise, I hope this helps someone else!

If someone wants a version that doesn’t throw status errors:

const WordCount = inputData.NameFull.trim().split(' ').length; // counts full name words

if (WordCount > 2) {
  let NameFirst = null; // creates blank entry for first name
  let NameLast = null; // creates blank entry for last name
  let NameError = "Manual entry required: " + inputData.NameFull; // adds manual entry note to full name
  output = ={NameFirst, NameLast, NameError}];
} else {
  let NameFull = inputData.NameFull.trim().split(' '); // removes whitespace and splits by spaces
  let NameFirst = NameFulll0]; // takes first array item
  let NameLast = NameFulllNameFull.length - 1]; // takes last array item
  let NameError = null; // creates blank entry for name error
  output = ={NameFirst, NameLast, NameError}];
}

I believe it is functionally the same… but Zapier won’t display errors and filling out the next step of the zap might be easier.

Terms & Conditions