Contacts
Contacts is the catalog of people linked to your Customers, Prospects and Vendors (for example, whoever buys from you, pays you, or handles your account inside that company). From here you register their personal data, grant or revoke access to the Customer Portal or the Vendor Portal, and mark them as a driver when applicable.
What is it and what is it for?
While a Customer or Vendor record represents the company you do business with, a Contact represents a person inside (or related to) that company: whoever receives the invoices, authorizes purchases, drives the merchandise, and so on. The same contact can be linked to several relationships at once (for example, the same person appears as a contact of two branches of the same group).
The most common use of this screen is managing self-service access: deciding which person at a customer can log into the Customer Portal to view their account statement or place orders, and which person at a vendor can log into the Vendor Portal. It also works as a general directory of people for other uses, such as registering external drivers (used on Transportation Trips and fixed assets) or simply keeping a directory of contacts for your business relationships.
Screens in this area
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| Contact list | Lists every contact in the company, with column customization. It includes quick filter links for All, With customer portal access, With vendor portal access, No access and No vendor access. When opened from a Customer or Vendor's own file, it is automatically filtered to that relationship. |
| Create / Edit | The contact form, organized into Contact, Social Networks, Address, Customer Portal and Mailing sections, plus Linked Relationships and (where applicable) Branches tabs. It includes the Smart Paste (AI) button to auto-fill the form from free-form text (for example, an email signature). |
| Details | The same file in read-only mode, with its linked relationships and branches, and the buttons to grant or revoke customer portal and vendor portal access directly from here. |
How to use it
- Open the list or enter from the Customer/Vendor file. From a relationship's Contacts tab you can create the contact already linked to it.
- Fill in the person's data. First and last name, position, department, phone numbers, personal email, social networks, address and, when applicable, whether they are a driver (with their driver's license).
- Link them to a relationship. Select the Customer or Vendor they belong to; you can also add them as a contact of other relationships from the Related tab.
- Turn on portal access if they need it. Check Allow customer portal access or Allow vendor portal access as needed, enter their email, and choose what they can see or do inside the portal.
- Save. AdmCloud validates the minimum data and, if you turned on portal access, automatically emails an invitation the first time.
- Review or edit an existing record. From Details you can turn portal access on or off with a single button, without opening the edit form.
Main capabilities
- Customer Portal access. Turning it on emails an invitation to the person (the first time) and lets you control, checkbox by checkbox, what they can see or do: view receivables, sales, service, projects, request service, create quotes or sales orders, authorize them, browse the price list, view attachments and create other portal users.
- Vendor Portal access. Same as above, but for a vendor's contact to log into their portal; it requires the relationship to be marked as a vendor.
- Drivers. Mark a contact as a driver (with license, type and expiration) to use on Trips in the Transportation (TMS) module and on fixed-asset assignments.
- Linked relationships. The same contact can be associated with several relationships besides the main one, useful when the same person serves more than one customer or branch.
- Relationship branches. If your company has the Advanced Sales module (Enterprise edition), you can assign the contact specific branches of the relationship with their maximum monthly order amount.
- Contact Class. If your company has the CRM module with Contact Classes active, you can classify the contact (for example, "Billing Contact").
- Custom fields. If your company enabled the Custom Fields module, you can define extra fields of your own for the Contacts form from Customization.
- List column customization. With the customize columns button you can choose which columns to see, in which order, and which one to sort by, and save the layout to reuse it later. Besides the columns shown out of the box (relationship, contact, position, phone, email, portal access, statement emails and inactive), the dialog offers many extra columns hidden by default: Birthday, Anniversary, nickname, fax, phone 2, mobile, personal email, notes, contact class, department, assistant, boss, tax ID, sex, nationality, address, city, state, zip code, country, social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), driver data (is driver, license, type and expiration), whether the contact is included in quote, sales order, invoice and purchase order emails, and the last update date.
- Smart Paste (AI). Paste free-form text (an email signature, a business card), or a copied image (a screenshot or a photo of a business card) whose text is read automatically, and artificial intelligence fills in name, phone numbers, emails, position, department, address and tax ID for you. Available when this beta feature is enabled for your account.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| First / Last name | Identify the person. You must provide at least one of the two, or otherwise the email address. |
| Customer/Vendor (Relationship) | The main relationship the contact belongs to. Required if you will grant access to any portal. |
| The email the contact logs into the portal with and receives the invitation on. Required if they have access to any portal; must be a valid format. | |
| Personal email | An alternate email for the person, not used for the portal. Must also be a valid format if provided. |
| Phones / Mobile / Fax | The person's phone contact details. |
| Position / Department / Assistant / Boss | Information about the person's role inside the company they represent. |
| Contact Class | Classifies the contact (for example, Decision Maker). Only available with CRM and Contact Classes active. |
| Is a driver / Driver's license | Identifies the person as an external driver, with their license number, type and expiration. |
| Allow customer/vendor portal access | Turn on access to the corresponding portal; each one enables extra checkboxes that define what the contact can see or do inside the portal. |
| Include in quote / sales order / invoice / statement / purchase order emails | Determine whether this contact receives a copy of those automatic emails, in addition to the relationship's main recipient. |
| Inactive | Hides the contact from searches and selection on new transactions without deleting it. |
| Custom fields | Extra fields defined by your company, if configured in Customization. Optional unless marked as required. |
Validations on save
- First name, last name or email: you must provide at least one of the three; you cannot save a completely blank contact.
- Email and relationship required for portal access: if you turn on customer or vendor portal access, the email and the relationship (Customer/Vendor) are required.
- Consistency with the relationship type: customer portal access requires the relationship to be marked as a customer, and vendor portal access requires it to be marked as a vendor.
- Relationship's financial data: to grant customer portal access, the relationship must have a price level, currency and payment terms defined.
- At least one module visible on the customer portal: the contact must be able to view Service or Accounts Receivable (depending on your company's active modules) to be able to log into the portal.
- Valid email format for both the main email and the personal email.
- Valid relationship and country: the relationship cannot be voided, and the country entered must exist in the country catalog.
- Order-creation days between 0 and 31.
- Non-repeating branches that match the contact's own relationship, when using the Branches tab.
Delete
A contact cannot be deleted if it is referenced elsewhere in the system: as the contact on a sales or purchasing transaction, as the recipient/consignee of a document, as the contact linked to a CRM Opportunity, as the external driver of a Transportation Trip or of a Fixed Asset, or if it has CRM Activities recorded under its name. AdmCloud shows you the records that are using it so you can decide how to proceed before deleting it.
Availability, plans and conditions
- To view, create, edit or delete contacts you need the "Contacts" permission at the corresponding level (View, Add, Edit or Delete).
- The Service-related portal options (viewing service, work orders, changing priority, canceling requests) only appear if your company has the Service module active.
- The create/authorize sales orders and order-status portal options only appear if your company has the Sales Orders (SO) module active.
- Viewing Accounts Receivable in the portal requires the Accounts Receivable module; including the contact on statement emails requires the Accounting module.
- Vendor Portal access requires the Purchases module to be active.
- Viewing projects in the portal requires the Projects module to be active.
- The Branches tab and the quote/order status-and-authorization and portal user-creation options require the Advanced Sales module (Enterprise edition).
- The Contact Class field requires the CRM module with Contact Classes active (Premium Plus CRM plan or Enterprise with CRM).
- Custom fields require your company to have the Custom Fields module active.
- The Smart Paste (AI) button depends on a feature that may still be in beta; if you don't see it, it is not yet enabled for your account.
Tips and common issues
Grant portal access from Details. The "Grant/Revoke access" buttons on the Details screen are faster than editing the full form when you only need to turn the portal on or off.
"You must indicate the relationship if you will grant portal access." This message appears if you turn on portal access without having linked the contact to a Customer or Vendor; select the relationship first.
You can't delete it while it's in use. Before deleting a contact, check the error message: it tells you which documents, opportunities, trips or fixed assets reference it, so you can decide how to proceed.