Don't See Contact Name field on Junction Object Related List

Question

I have three objects: committee, committee member, and contact. Committee member is a junction object between committee and contact, with two master-detail relationships: one to committee and one to contact.

On the committee page layout, a related list called "Members" lists the members (contacts). In my configuration for the list of available fields for the related list, the contact object shows up. Most of the contact fields are visible: first name, last name, phone, email address, etc. - all the expected fields except the name field, which is the one we want, so there will be a hyperlink to contact. Does anyone have an idea why the contact name field does NOT show up?

FWIW, we worked around it by creating a formula field with a hyperlink; this is a quest for understanding. Below is a list of fields that I see showing the Contact: Name nowhere in sight.

Answer 1

Name field on the Contact object is the concatenation of FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, and Suffix. I really doubt that Salesforce stores this field separately in the database instead of just displaying it using the data stored under FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, and Suffix fields.

Contact Name field works fine in the related list where Contact is the direct child of the other objects (for ex - Account). In your use case there is no direct link between the Contact and Committee object and the related list in which you are trying to add the Contact Name field is for the Committee member related records. I believe this is the reason Contact Name field is not visible.