Contacts

Overview

Use the Contacts module to create and manage contacts for your organization.

A contact is any individual who is a valid sales lead; a lead that has been evaluated and assessed for a possible sales opportunity. You can associate a contact with any record such as an Account, Opportunity, or Campaign. Associating a contact with a campaign enables you to track the effectiveness of the campaign in generating opportunities for your organization.

Contact actions

The Actions bar on the Contacts tab displays the following options:

Create Contact. Click this option to create a record for a new contact.

Create Contact From vCard. Click this option to import a vCard file from your local system.

View Contacts. Click this option to view a list of your existing contacts.

Import Contacts. Click this option to import contact information from an external application or file. For more information, seeImporting Data.

Creating Contacts

You can create contacts in Sugar and you can also import them into Sugar using a comma-delimited, tab-delimited, or custom delimited file.

To create a contact

1.	Select Create Contact from the Actions bar on the Contacts tab.

Or, click the Create icon on any page within the Contacts module.

2.	Enter the following information in the Contacts Overview section:

First Name. Enter the contact’s first name.

Last Name. Enter the contact’s last name.

Title. Enter the contact’s business title.

Office Phone. Enter the contact’s office phone number.

Mobile. Enter the contact’s mobile phone number.

Fax. Enter the contact’s fax number.

Account Name. Enter the account name associated with the contact; or click Select to choose from the list of existing accounts.

Address: Enter the Primary Address and Other Address information. Select Copy address from left box to copy the Primary Address into the Other Address section.

If you select a contact from the Contact’s list, the system automatically enters the address. You can edit this information if required. Similarly, if the contact is related to an account, Sugar automatically auto-fills this field with the account’s primary address.

Email Address: Enter the email address for the organization and your contacts and campaign targets within the organization. SelectInvalid to indicate an incorrect email address. If you sent out campaign emails this contact and the individual chose to opt-out of receiving them, select Opted Out.

To add an additional email address, click the Add icon. You can add multiple email addresses.

Description: Enter a brief description for the contact.

Enter the following details in the More Information section:

Reports To. Click Select and select the contact’s supervisor from the Contacts list.

Lead Source. Select the source that generated the lead, such as direct mail or trade show from this drop-down list.

Campaign. Enter the campaign name or click Select to select it from the Campaigns list to associate the contact with a campaign.

Sync to Outlook. Select this box to synchronize this contact information with Outlook if you have installed the Sugar Plug-in for Microsoft Outlook.

Do Not Call. Select this box to add the contact to the Do Not Call list. This is to ensure that the contact is not targeted during campaigns.

Specify the following information in the Other section:

Assigned to. Select the individual who is responsible for communicating with this contact. You are assigned to the contact by default.

3.	Click Save to save the record and view its detail page.

Click Cancel to return to the Contact’s home page without creating the new contact.

Managing Contacts

Managing Contacts includes tasks such as editing, importing and exporting contact records.

To manage Contacts

•	To edit or delete information related to multiple contacts, select multiple records in the Contacts List View and click the Mass Update link in the Actions drop-down list. For more information, see Editing and Deleting Multiple Records.

•	To add one or more contacts to a campaign target list, select them in the Contacts List View and click Add to Target List to select the list from the Target Lists pop-up window.

•	To display the Detail View for a contact, click on the contact name in the List View.

•	To edit contact information, click Edit in the Contact’s Detail View.

•	To archive a related email, scroll down to the History sub-panel in the Detail View where related emails are listed and click Archive Email. This displaysthe Create Archived Email form. Copy-paste information related to the email into this form to save it for your records.

•	To pull in account data from data sources such as LinkedIn, select the data source from the contact’s Detail View. For more information on data sources, see Integrating data from external sources.

•	To import records, select Import from the Actions bar list of the Contacts tab. For more information on importing data, see Importing Data.

•	To export records, select the records from the Contacts List View, click Export from the Actions bar list and follow the process described in Exporting Data.

•	To merge duplicates, select the records from the Contacts List View, click Merge from the Actions bar list, and follow the process described in Merging Duplicate Records.

•

To manage newsletter subscriptions, click Manage Subscriptions on the Contact Detail View. To add the individual to a newsletter subscription mailing list, select the newsletter from the Available/NewsLetters Unsubscribed to list and drag it to the NewsLetters Subscribed To list. To remove the individual from the mailing list of a newsletter, drag the newsletter from the Newsletters Subscribed tolist to the Available/NewsLetters Unsubscribed to list. ClickSave to update the information.

•	To duplicate contact information, click Duplicate in the Contact Detail View.

Duplication is a convenient way of creating a similar contact. You can change the information in the duplicate record to create a new contact.

•	To track changes made to contact information over time, click the View Change Log link located in the Detail View.

•	To manage records in a sub-panel, see To manage related information in sub-panels.

Using vCards to Import and Export Contacts

vCards are electronic business cards that are exchanged through applications such as email and web browsers. You can view and create a vCard file from the record’s Detail View. You can save it to your local machine to import it to other applications.

When you create contacts in Sugar, or import them from another application, the system automatically creates a vCard for it. You can also create a vCard file from the record’s Detail View and save it in Outlook, or on your local machine.

To import a vCard

1.	Select Create from vCard from the Actions bar of the Contacts module tab.

This displays the Import vCard page.

2.	Click Browse to navigate to the vCard location on the local file system.

3.	Select the file from your local machine and click Import vCard.

This displays the Detail View page of the created contact.

4.	Click the vCard icon located to the right of the contact Name in the contact’s Detail View to open the vCard and edit the information.

To edit or to save a vCard to a different location

1.	Click the vCard icon located next to the contact’s name in the contact’s Detail View.

This displays a dialog box prompting you to open or save the file.

2.	To edit the vCard and save it in your Contacts folder in Outlook, open the file, make the necessary changes and click Save; to save the vCard on your local machine, select Save As.

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