How can I combine the functionality of the Type: Person or Group, with the possibility of manual entries in a single Field?

Question

In the SharePoint 2013, I have a List with two Fields:

1. External Name (Type: Single line of text)
2. Internal Name (Type: Person or Group)

The second field (Internal Name) allows you to select people from the Exchange Global Address List (GAL). What I need is to have a single Field instead of two.

How can I combine the functionality of the Type: Person or Group, with the possibility of manual entries in a single column?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Question: can you describe the driver behind the separate fields? For example, the External Name. Does that mean external to your environment assuming permissions and AD group enabled for external users? If so you should be able to use the people-picker for one column. If not, you'll need to keep them separate - the person or group/people picker field type can only pick from identities that have access to your SP environment.