Managing contacts

A contact is a person the CRM follows: someone you deal with at a customer, a prospect or a partner. This article explains how to find and create a contact, record their contact details and preferences, attach them to one or more accounts and follow their history. It is intended for sales representatives, their managers and CRM administrators.

Before you start #

• The CRM module must be enabled for your workspace and open to you (see Enabling and administering the CRM module).
• Permissions in the role matrix, CRM menu: “CRM contacts — View” to see the list and the records, “CRM contacts — Create” for the New contact button, “CRM contacts — Edit” to edit a contact and manage their attachments, “CRM contacts — Delete” to delete and merge. The Access level is enough.
• Each permission applies within a scope, Mine, My team or All, based on the contact’s owner (see CRM settings). By default, a Sales representative reads every contact but edits only their own.
• To attach a contact to an account, you must also be able to read that account.

Finding a contact #

Open CRM › Contacts. The list shows the people the CRM follows, within your scope, with the total number of contacts.

• Search: type a name, an email address or a phone number, then confirm.
• Filters: account (search for it by name), role, owner (Me, No owner or a person) and tag.
• Sort by: name, recently updated or recently created contacts, owner.
• Columns: account, role, job title, email, phone, owner, tags, language, date updated. Your choice is remembered in this browser.

Next to the name, badges flag the channels the contact refuses: Do not call, Do not email, No mail. They appear wherever the contact is shown. In the list and on the record, a contact who has objected carries a single badge instead, Objected.

With the “CRM import and export — View” permission, the CSV and Excel buttons export the filtered list (see Importing, exporting and using the API).

Creating a contact #

1. In CRM › Contacts, click New contact.
2. Fill in the identity: Title, First name, Last name (required), Job title, Department, Language and, if you wish, the LinkedIn address (an https address on linkedin.com).
3. The Owner is you by default.
4. Under Emails and Phone numbers, click Add an email or Add a phone number, choose the type and enter the value. Tick Main on the detail to use first; only one email and one phone number can be the main one.
5. Enter the contact’s Source and Legal basis: legitimate interest, consent, contract or legal obligation. With consent, the date (Given on, never in the future) and the Proof (form, email, reference…) are required.
6. Set the Contact preferences (see below), then the Tags, Custom fields and Notes.
7. Click Create the contact.

Before creating, Illizeo looks for similar contacts: same email, same name in the same account, or same phone number. If it finds any, the window shows “Similar contacts already exist.”. Open the existing one opens the record already there; Back to the form lets you correct your entry; Create anyway creates the contact. The same email address usually means the same person: only create if it really is someone else. A contact outside your scope is never named.

Contact preferences #

The Contact preferences section of the form records two things:

• the Preferred channel: None, Email, Phone or Mail;
• the refused channels: tick Do not email, Do not call or No mail.

The preferred channel cannot be a channel the contact refuses: the screen flags it before you even save.

These refusals apply elsewhere in the CRM. Planning a call with a contact who does not want to be called is refused (“This contact does not want to be called.”); a call received can always be logged. Sending a quote by email to a contact who refuses emails is refused in the same way.

The contact record #

The top of the record shows the name, job title, main account, owner and refusal badges, then the buttons: vCard for anyone who can read the contact, Edit with the permission to edit, Merge with… and Delete with the permission to delete.

• Overview: identity, contact details (the main one is marked), the Preferences and data protection section (preferred channel, refused channels, source, legal basis and, where relevant, date and proof of consent), CRM data (tags, notes) and custom fields.
• Accounts: the active attachments, then the closed ones.
• Activities: if you have the permission to view them (see Activities and “My activities”).
• Memberships and Events: their club memberships and the events they were invited to, if you have the permission to view them.
• Timeline: the contact’s history.

Depending on your permissions, the Preferences and data protection section also carries the Stop contacting, Export their data and Erase this contact buttons; a contact who has objected shows a banner at the top of the record (see Protecting contact data (GDPR)).

To edit the contact, click Edit, correct the form, then click Save. The emails and phone numbers in the form replace the contact’s existing ones. If you change the owner, the new person is notified; the list only offers active people who have the permission to view CRM contacts and are within your scope.

The vCard button downloads the contact’s business card, to import into an address book. Each vCard export is recorded in the timeline.

Attaching a contact to accounts #

A contact can be attached to several accounts, each with a role, a job title and a period. One of them is their main account, the one shown in the list and in the record header.

From the contact record #

1. Open the Accounts tab and click Attach to an account.
2. Search for the Account (at least two characters).
3. If needed, choose the Role (decision maker, influencer, user…), the Job title in this account and the Since date.
4. Tick Contact’s main account to make it their main account: the previous one loses that mark. If you leave it unticked, this account becomes the main one when the contact has none yet.
5. Click Attach.

From an account record #

An account’s Contacts tab lists its attachments, filtered with the Active, Closed and All buttons. A contact outside your scope does not appear there.

• Attach an existing contact opens the same window: search for the Contact by name, email or phone number.
• New contact opens the creation form; the contact is attached to the account as soon as it is created, with the role chosen in Role at, and this account becomes their main account if they had none.

Editing or ending an attachment #

In the contact’s Accounts tab, the pencil icon edits an attachment. When the contact leaves an organisation, click End, enter the End date (today by default, never in the future nor before the start) and confirm with End. The attachment moves to the closed attachments: it stays in the history and is never deleted.

The timeline #

The Timeline tab traces the contact’s creation, changes, changes of owner, attachments, vCard exports, merges, the objection and the export of their data, the activities you can read and the emails logged with them. Filter by Event type to see only one kind. Notes and contact details never appear there: only the fact that they changed is recorded.

Deleting a contact #

Click Delete and confirm. The contact’s details, attachments, tags and custom fields go with them. The activities and opportunities they appeared in remain, without them.

Good to know #

• A contact has only one active attachment per account: attaching them twice to the same account is refused.
• A closed attachment cannot be the main account.
• The same email address or phone number cannot appear twice on a contact; each contact accepts ten emails and ten phone numbers at most.
• A contact who has objected under data protection rules keeps all their channels closed: the objection must be lifted before a channel can be reopened (see Protecting contact data (GDPR)). That article also covers exporting and erasing a contact’s data.
• A contact created with the email address of a contact who has objected is created with an objection too, even with Create anyway.
• The roles and sources offered, custom fields and tags are set in Settings › CRM › CRM settings (see CRM settings).
• Two duplicate contacts are brought together with Merge with… (see Finding duplicates and merging records).
• If your workspace submits the creation or change of some records for validation, the message “Sent for validation: nothing is written until a person approves it.” appears, with View the request: the contact is only created or changed after the decision.

FAQ #

The account I have just attached is not marked as main. #

If you leave the box unticked, an account only becomes the main one when the contact had none yet. To change the main account, edit the attachment with the pencil icon and tick Contact’s main account.

Why can I not choose “Phone” as the preferred channel? #

Because Do not call is ticked. Untick it if the contact accepts calls again; if the contact has objected, the objection must be lifted first.