Contacts

A contact is the person you call or text. Contacts are ordinary content items of a content type that has the Omnichannel Contact part attached (usually a type called Contact). Every activity, call and conversation is linked to a contact.

Menu	Interaction Center > Contacts
Permission	List content items (to see contacts); the content edit and publish permissions, such as Edit own content, for the contact type (to add and change them)
Feature	Omnichannel Management

Can't find it?

What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.

Set up the contact type (once)

An administrator with the Edit content types permission usually does this once, when the site is set up. One contact type is usually all you need. Create more than one only when you want to keep different kinds of people apart, for example Customer and Employee.

1. Open Content > Content Definition > Content Types and create a type named Contact (or edit your existing one).

2. Add the Omnichannel Contact part and any fields your business needs, such as a title for the person's name.

3. Open the part's settings to choose what the contact editor shows:

   Setting	What it does
   Auto detect time zone	Works out the contact's time zone from their phone number when none is picked. On by default.
   Require time zone	Makes the time zone required. Only applies when auto detect is off.
   Use Do not call, Use Do not SMS, Use Do not email	Shows that preference on the contact. Only Do not call is on by default.

The part adds a fixed Contact methods list to the contact, where phone numbers and email addresses are stored. Dialers, loads, imports and exports always read numbers from this list, so do not remove or rename it. A phone number is saved in international format together with its country, so the right country flag shows when you edit it again.

The screencast below creates a Lead type with the Omnichannel Contact and Title parts, then adds a lead with a time zone and a cell phone number:

Create a contact

1. Open Interaction Center > Contacts and click New followed by the contact type's name (for example New Customer).
2. Fill in the name and other fields. Under Contact Methods, click Add Item > Phone Number, type the number and pick its Type (for example Cell). Pick the Contact time zone, or leave Timezone (Automatic) to detect it from the number.
3. Tick Do not call, Do not SMS or Do not email if the person asked not to be contacted that way. Dialers, loads and automated messages skip them.
4. Click Publish.

Find a contact

On Interaction Center > Contacts, the search box matches a name or a phone number, so you can type either one. A plain number finds contacts whose main cell or home number contains those digits. This only happens on the Contacts list; on other content lists the search box matches names only.

You can also use these search terms. The Filters menu of the list has a Phone card that reminds you of them.

Term	Matches	Example
phone:	numbers that contain the digits	phone:702555
phone-exact:	the exact number	phone-exact:7025550123
phone-starts:	numbers that begin with the digits	phone-starts:+1702
phone-ends:	numbers that end with the digits	phone-ends:0123

Tips:

• Spaces, brackets and dashes are ignored, so (702) 555 and 702-555 work too.
• Start with + to include the country code. Without it, only the national number is compared, so the search can find contacts in more than one country.
• An exact search finds the number however it was saved: 5555550123, 15555550123 and +15555550123 all find the same contact. A ten-digit number is read as a North American number.

Work with a contact

On a saved contact, the buttons at the top lead to its work:

• List Activities shows the contact's scheduled and completed activities.
• Add Activity > Outbound schedules a call or message to the contact.
• Add Activity > Inbound logs a call or message the contact started.

See Activities.

Import and export contacts

Use Content > Export to download contacts as CSV or Excel, and Content > Import to load a file of leads. See Import and export for the general steps.

Import options for contacts

When the file is for a contact type, the import page adds these options:

Option	What it does
Ignore duplicate by phone number	Imports only the first row for a phone number. Later rows with the same number, and numbers that already belong to a record, are skipped and listed in the error file. A row that points at an existing contact is still updated.
Compare with	Shown when the Omnichannel CRM feature is on: which records count as duplicates. Every contact (the default), Contacts of this type only, or Every contact and lead. Leads are left out by default, so a customer who was once a lead can still be imported.
Lead country	The country the file's phone numbers belong to. Local numbers are converted to international format with it, before duplicate and do-not-call checks run, and it is used to work out each contact's time zone when the file has none. Required. Keep one country per file, unless every number in the file already starts with + and the country code.
Ignore numbers on national do-not-call registries	Checks each number against the registries you tick under Select registries to check against, such as the Local Do Not Call Registry. Registries marked Enforced, and this whole option when your administrator enforces it, are always checked. See Do-not-call lists.
When a number is on a registry	Skip the row leaves it out and lists it in the error file. Import it marked Do not call keeps the record, so the number is recognised if it is bought or imported again, and Do not call keeps it out of every call.

The file can also carry each contact's Do not call, Do not SMS and Do not email flags and the dates they were set, and the contact's time zone. A row that points at an existing contact updates that contact.

The import runs in the background. Its entry on the Import page ends as Completed, or as Completed with errors with a count of the rows that were skipped, such as a number on a do-not-call list. In the screencast, four leads are created and the fifth is skipped because its number is on the local list.

Export contacts with their last activity

When you export a contact type, the export page shows a CRM last activity section. Use it to hand someone a single file with each contact's details and their latest call or message on one subject.

Option	What it does
Include last completed activity information	Adds columns for the contact's most recent completed activity of the chosen subject: the agent's note, when it was completed, who completed it, the disposition, the subject, and each of the subject's fields.
Subject	Required when the option is on. The subject whose last completed activity is exported.
Include only contacts with a last activity record	Leaves out contacts that have no completed activity of that subject. When it is off, every contact is exported and those columns are left empty.

An export with this option always runs in the background, and you download the file when it is ready. The technical manual lists the exact column names.