Customer search works, customer workflow doesn't have the same fields exposed ?

I have a custom field on the customer record, which I need to populate with a concatenation of the Customer Name +  the NetSuite Customer ID.  I need the ID behind the name, so I can't use the "entityid"

I have a customer saved search with a formula(text) like this:  CONCAT(CONCAT({altname}, '     '),      {entityid}) 

that gives me exactly what I want.

So now I am trying to create a workflow which will run each night, and for any customers where that custom field is blank, it will do the formula and fill in the custom field.

However, when I created the workflow and add a state to set the field value, I'm in the formula box and it doesn't like the "altname"  field.  If I use "name" that gives me the ID+Name with the ID in the front (I need it behind the name, which is why I'm doing this custom field - so that I can sort alphabetically by name)