Contact Management

The contact management allows you to create and manage contacts in contact rooms. Based on user-defined criteria you can specify address lists that can be exported for sending newsletters, for example.

Contacts can be either contact persons or organizations. Organizations, in the sense of contacts, should not be confused with cloud organizations (used for user administration). Duplicate checks support the avoidance of different datasets.

Special property values of contacts (e.g. salutation, address, telephone number and so on) can be assigned to different contact rooms and are therefore only visible to authorized users in the respective contact rooms. This makes it possible, for example, to ensure that the business contact data of employees are accessible to all employees, while the private contact data is only accessible to the HR department.

Audit log entries are written for use cases such as copying data tables or exporting contacts. More information can be found in chapter “Auditing”.

Note: The contact management may have to be enabled by an organization administrator (Organization > Licenses > Solutions > Contact Management with assignment Configured (Inactive) > “Enable” action).

Contacts Dashboard

The contacts dashboard is your central access point for contact management.

When you are added to a contact configuration as a contacts user, a dashboard is automatically created and placed on “Home”. If you are removed as a contacts user, the dashboard will also be removed.

The contacts dashboard is divided into the following areas:

• Recently Used Contacts
  Shows the last contact persons and organizations you have used.
• Contact Rooms
  Shows the contact rooms in which the contacts are managed. Each contact room defines its own rights context.
• Address Lists
  Shows all address lists. In address lists, contacts can be collected and exported from different contact rooms.

You can perform the following actions:

• Create Contact Room
  As contacts administrator you can use the “Create Contact Room” action to create new contact rooms.
• Switch to Configuration
  Use the “Switch to Configuration” action to view the configuration associated with the dashboard.
• Settings
  The “Settings” action allows you to set general contacts dashboard properties, such as the logo or notification setting.

Contacts Configuration

In the contacts configuration, you can define as contacts administrator settings for the metadata of contacts. In addition, you can specify users who are allowed to use the contact management.

Contacts configurations can be created in the organization by the organization owner, organization administrator or payment user. The defined contacts administrators can edit the corresponding contacts configurations.

Note: As contacts administrator, you can switch to the assigned configuration via the contacts dashboard.

Areas

The contacts configuration dashboard is divided into the following areas:

• Contact Rooms
  Shows the contact rooms in which the contacts are managed. Each contact room defines its own rights context.
• The general areas can be found in chapter “Configurations”.

Actions

You can perform the following actions:

• Create Contact Room
  With the “Create Contact Room” action you can define a new contact room.
• Translations
  The “Translations” action can be used to export or import a CSV file containing the multilingual names of the customizing objects. This enables an external translation.
• Settings
  Use the “Settings” action to define settings for the metadata of contacts.
• Team
  The “Permissions“ action allows you to specify contacts administrators who can edit the configuration. Contacts administrators have full control on all contact rooms. Contacts users are authorized to use the contact management. The respective rights are determined by the contact rooms.
  Note: Based on the specified users the consumed licenses are calculated.

Settings

In the contact configuration, you can make the following settings:

“Contact Person” tab

• Contact Person
  Specifies which optional contact person metadata should be displayed for a contact person.
• Address
  Specifies which optional address metadata should be displayed for a contact person.
• Organization
  Specifies which optional organizational metadata should be displayed for a contact person.
• Further Information
  Specifies which optional additional information metadata should be displayed for a contact person.
• Declarations of Consent
  Specifies which fields should be displayed for a contact person with regard to declarations of consent for data processing.

“Organization” tab

• Organization
  Specifies which optional organizational metadata should be displayed for an organization.
• Address
  Specifies which optional address metadata should be displayed for an organization.
• Further Information
  Specifies which optional additional information metadata should be displayed for an organization.

“Predefined Values” tab

• Relationship Types
  Specify values that you want to be selectable for relationship types (for example, business partners).
• Industries
  Specify values that you want to be selectable for industries (for example, trade).
• Functions
  Specify values that you want to be selectable for functions (for example, consultant).
• Kinds of Social Media
  Set values to be selectable for types of social media (for example, Facebook).
• Kinds of Other Information
  Specify values to be selected for types of additional information (for example, hobby).
• Declarations of Consent
  Specify values to be selected for types of declarations of consent (for example, e-mail).

“Externally Managed Fields” tab

• Contact Person
  The selected metadata is displayed read-only for a contact person, if the Managed Externally option is selected for the contact person. This means that the metadata can no longer be changed via the user interface, but only via the import mechanism.
• Organization
  The selected metadata is displayed read-only for an organization, if the Managed Externally option is selected for the organization. This means that the metadata can no longer be changed via the user interface, but only via the import mechanism.

Additional tabs

• The general settings can be found in chapter “Configurations”.

Contact Rooms

Contact rooms are used for the structured administration of contacts and to define access rights (“Permissions“ action) and default values (“Settings” action > “Default Values” tab).

You can store the contacts directly in the contact room at top level or structure them further with folders. Special property values of contacts (e.g. the salutation) can be assigned to different contact rooms and are therefore only visible to authorized users in the respective contact rooms.

Address lists allow collecting and exporting contacts from different contact rooms.

In addition to the structured management of contacts, it is also possible to manage them in an unstructured way. You can find more information on unstructured shelves in chapter “Unstructured Shelves”.

Creating Contact Persons

To create a contact person, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the desired contact room.
2. Click the “Create Contact Person” action.
3. Enter the contact person’s data. First name and surname are mandatory fields.
4. Optionally, click the “Show Additional Fields” button to see all available fields of the contact person.
5. Click “Create”.

Note:

• If no main organization is assigned to the contact person, an organization name and the function in the organization can be assigned textually.
• If organizations are assigned to the contact person, the addresses and telephone numbers of the current organizations are added to the contact person.
• Before a contact person is created, a duplicate check is automatically carried out (see chapter “Duplicate Check”).

Creating Organizations

To create an organization, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the desired contact room.
2. Click the “Create Organization” action.
3. Enter the organization’s data. The name is a mandatory field.
4. Optionally, click the “Show Additional Fields” button to see all available fields of the organization.
5. Click “Create”.

Note: Before an organization is created, a duplicate check is automatically carried out (see chapter “Duplicate Check”).

Duplicate Check

When creating or changing contacts, it is checked whether a corresponding contact already exists. The duplicate check is only performed with contacts that the user, who executes the action, has access to. If a duplicate has been found, you can clean up or merge the contacts in a dialog.

Contact persons are recognized as duplicates if

• either the e-mail address already exists and/or
• the given first name and surname already exist.
  Note: If the first name is empty, contact persons with the same last name and also empty first name will be recognized as duplicates.

Organizations are recognized as duplicates if

• either the e-mail address already exists and/or
• the entered organization name already exists.

To perform a duplicate check, proceed as follows:

1. When creating or editing a contact, a duplicate check is automatically carried out. If a duplicate is found, a dialog will be opened.
2. Values that differ are highlighted. The new value is highlighted in yellow and the old value is crossed out. Move the mouse pointer over the corresponding line. You can adjust the values accordingly by using the “Insert”, “Remove", “Replace” or “Discard” buttons. The “Restore” button can be used to discard an adjustment.
3. Click “Next” after resolving all conflicts.

Changing the Assignment of Contacts

Contacts can be assigned to another contact room. Full control is required in the source contact room and change access in the target contact room. If you do not have the necessary rights, the change request can also be forwarded to another user.

To change an assignment of contacts, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate to the desired contact.
2. In the contact's context menu, click “Change Assignment” (available only for users with full control).
3. If you have change access in the target contact room, you can change the assignment by yourself, otherwise you can forward the change request, for example, to a contact administrator.
   • Case 1: Select the target contact room and click “Change Assignment”.
   • Case 2: Click “Forward”. Select a user (contact administrator) and click “Forward”. The selected user receives an activity in the worklist. The assignment to the contact room can be changed via the “Change assignment” work step.

Note: You can determine contact administrators by switching to the configuration and clicking the “Permissions“ action.

Using Address Lists

Address lists can be created in a contact room (access rights context) using the “Create Address List” action. However, the contacts in address lists can be collected from different contact rooms.

If a user does not have access rights to a contact in the address list, the contact is displayed with “Access Denied”.

Additional address lists can be created in address lists. This makes it possible to create an address list hierarchy. For example, an address list “Events” can consist of address lists for different events. When exporting the “Events” address list, all contacts of the subordinate address lists are taken into account.

You can manually compose address lists by copying and pasting contacts into the address list. Alternatively, you can also define search criteria.

To define search criteria for an address list, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the desired address list.
2. Click the “Define Search Criteria” action.
3. Select whether you want to search for contact persons or organizations.
   You can also restrict the objects you are looking for to the current contact room or your organization.
4. Enter the search criteria and click “Save Query”.
5. Click on the “Refresh Result” action to apply the search criteria.

Note:

• “Refresh Result” applies the last saved query to the address list.
• You can also use the “Define Search Criteria” action for a standard search without saving the query. You can copy the search hits manually.

Importing and Exporting Contacts

The import and export of contacts is possible in address lists. When importing contacts, they are assigned to the contact room of the used address list. If a user-defined form is assigned to contacts, these properties can also be imported and exported (the programming name of the respective property serves as the column caption).

Import

Contacts can be imported and updated using a CSV or XLSX file.

To import contacts, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the desired address list.
2. Click the “Import Contacts” action.
3. Click the “Download CSV Template” button to obtain a template describing the required data structure.
4. In the Content field, enter the path to the CSV or XLSX file that defines the contacts.
5. Click “Start import”.
6. After the import has completed, click “Next”.

The imported contacts are stored in the address list and in the corresponding contact room.

The CSV columns are generally user-defined text fields of the type string or date (yyyy-mm-dd). For multi-value fields (e.g. nameorgext) a carriage return (CR LF) is used as separator.

Note: The externally managed properties of a contact can only be updated, if the specified data source matches the data source of the existing contact.

Organization

The following table contains all relevant columns for organizations.

Note: For overridekeys with multipart CSV column names, specify the string before the dot (e.g. telephone). Overwriting therefore affects all values of the telephone aggregate and all other telephone columns serving simplification purposes (telephone.telnumber, telephone.addrtopic, telephonebusiness, telephonefax etc.). For addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers you have to specify the respective base column (address, emailinformation or telephone).

Contact Person

The following table contains all relevant columns for contact persons.

Note: For overridekeys with multipart CSV column names, specify the string before the dot (e.g. telephone). Overwriting therefore affects all values of the telephone aggregate and all other telephone columns serving simplification purposes (telephone.telnumber, telephone.addrtopic, telephonebusiness, telephonefax etc.). For addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers you have to specify the respective base column (address, emailinformation or telephone).

Export

Contacts can be exported as CSV file. For property lists, the first value found is exported.

To export contacts, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in the desired address list.
2. Click the “Export Contacts” action.
3. By default, the columns to be included in the CSV file are determined by the column settings of the address list. Adjust the columns if necessary.
   Note: The last used settings are saved for the address list, if the export was carried out by a user with at least change rights. You can restore the columns according to the address list by clicking the “Reset” button.
4. Optionally, click “Show Details” to set the order for exporting addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, salutations and contact rooms. The order of the contact rooms is always the second criterion. Only the first value found is exported.
   Example: If you specify the sequence for e-mail addresses with “Business, Private” and the sequence of contact rooms with “Room 1, Room 2”, the following sequence is defined:
   • First, the first business e-mail address assigned to room 1 is searched for.
   • if no e-mail address was found, the first business e-mail address assigned to room 2 is searched for.
   • If no e-mail address was found, the first private e-mail address assigned to room 1 is searched for.
   • If no e-mail address was found, the first private e-mail address assigned to room 2 is searched for.
5. Click “Export”.

The CSV file with the selected columns is downloaded.

Note: Contacts in the wastebasket are not exported.

Deleting Contacts

To delete a contact (to be placed in the recycle bin) you need to have change access. If property values of the contact are assigned to a different contact room, also change access is required in this room. If you do not have the necessary rights, contact a contacts administrator. To delete permanently a contact (to be removed from the recycle bin) full control is required.

To delete a contact, execute the “Delete” context menu command.

Using Address Books

Access to contacts is also possible via third-party products such as “Apple Contacts”, which support the CardDAV standard. A password for applications is required for access. If you have not yet created one for CardDAV, create one now (see chapter “Access for Applications”).

To display contacts in a third-party product, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate in a contact room or address list.
2. Click the “Add to Address Book List” action.
   Note: The “Remove From Address Book List” action can be used to remove the contact room or address list again.
3. Switch to your third-party contacts product.
4. Configure a new account in the third-party product. Enter your e-mail address for the cloud log-in as the user name and the generated password for applications as the password.

The cloud contacts are now displayed in the third-party product and can be edited if applicable.

Note: The “Open Cloud Address Book” context menu command of the Fabasoft Cloud notification symbol can be used to include the address book list in Microsoft Outlook.

Serial E-Mails

Via a serial e-mail you can send personalized e-mails to defined recipients from the contact management.

Note: This functionality is only available if your cloud organization has its own SMTP server configured.

To send a serial e-mail, proceed as follows:

1. Navigate to a Teamroom and create a “Serial E-Mail” object.
2. Define the metadata for the e-mails to be sent (see below).
3. The “Define Addressees” action can be used to define the recipients and to generate the CSV file with the contact data.
4. The “Execute E-Mail Test Dispatch” action can be used to specify test recipients who receive the specified number of sample e-mails. This allows you to check whether the e-mails meet your requirements.
5. The “Send Serial E-Mail” action can be used to send the e-mails to the recipients. In the send overview you can also create or update the CSV file with the recipient data.
   You can check the result on the “Transmission Log” tab of the serial e-mail. For the recipient contacts, the serial e-mail is stored on the “Communication” tab.
   When the action is executed again, only e-mails that have not yet been sent are sent (e.g. due to a sending error).

Metadata

“Serial E-Mail” tab

• Name
  The name of the serial e-mail.
• E-Mail Subject
  Defines the subject of the e-mail.
• Use E-Mail Message From Document
  Defines whether the e-mail text should be entered directly or whether a file should be uploaded. For directly entered text or for an HTML file, the following placeholders can be used to personalize the e-mail:
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrSurName]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrFirstName]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrSalutation]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrSexSalutation]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrStreet]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrPostOfficeBox]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrZipCode]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrCity]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrTitle]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrContact]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrCountry]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldTelNumber]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldOrganization]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldAddrState]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldMiddleName]
  • [=addressee_FSCFOLIO_1_1001_FieldPostTitle]
• E-Mail Message
  The e-mail message as text or file.
• Attachments
  The specified contents are added as attachments to the e-mail. HTML attachments can also be personalized.
• Send Attachments as
  The contents can be sent in the original format or as a PDF file. If conversion to PDF is not possible, the file is sent in the original format.

“Addressees” tab

• Name of Sender
  Defines the name of the sender. By default, your user name is used.
• E-Mail Address of Sender
  Defines the e-mail address of the sender. By default, your user e-mail address is used.
• Addressees
  The e-mail is sent to the defined addressees (contact persons, organizations and address lists).
• Robinson List
  Allows filtering the specified addressees by contacts, organizations and address lists.
• Create/Recreate CSV File
  To determine the contact data from the addressees, a CSV file must be created before sending.

“Transmission Log” tab

• Transmission Errors (Preview)
  Shows a limited number of transmission errors that occurred.
• Transmission Log
  Contains the complete transmission log. If applicable, the corresponding error message is shown for each e-mail.