Contacts Module

Summary

The Contacts module is the centralized administrative place to create, view, and manage your library of Contacts across Supportable.

Who this article is for

• Intake/Admissions/Referral Management Department
• Outreach / Marketing Specialists
• Admins and Managers auditing or monitoring activity or configuring workflows

How the Contacts module fits in

The Contacts module is primarily used for data hygiene and administration. A Contact is relevant in two primary contexts:

The Referrals module

In the Referrals module, the Contact is associated with a Person and/or a referral of a person, e.g. the referral source, a family member, emergency contact, case manager, primary doctor, etc. Contact Logs can be created for this Contact as a means to collect information about a referral and generate a narrative on a referral.

Here, information about contacts can enter the system through referrals submitted to your company. Any user with access to a given referral can take this information and either:

1. create a new Contact, OR
2. or associate it with an existing Contact from your library.

When a Contact is created in the Referrals module, it will automatically be inserted into your library of Contacts in the Contacts module.

The Outreach module

A Marketing Profile is created from the Contact in the Outreach module where Marketing Interactions can be planned and recorded.

What the Contacts module does

The primary purpose of this module is to manage your Contacts as a means to keep your data clean. You can also create contacts here through individual entry or import.

This is especially crucial when analyzing your referral sources and being able to attribute your referrals to a Contact. This ensures that you're able to mitigate duplicate and conflicting information about your sources.

Where to find it

For those with permission, you can find the Contacts module in the left main navigation bar.

 

General layout

Think of the Contacts module as divided into two lists, represented by two tabs at the top of the page:

• Contacts: Your list of individual people that can be, but not always, associated with a Company.
• Companies: Your list of organizations that contain many Contacts. That is, a Contact can be associated with a Company using the Company field. Keeping your Companies organized and managed ensures you're able to get the best reporting on which Companies and which Contacts within those Companies are sending you the best referrals.

Top Bar

Search Bar

You can use the search bar to dynamically search for Contacts by Name, Company, or Job Title.

Filter

Click on the Filter icon to open a menu of properties to filter by. Use the Clear Filters button to remove any filters you have applied.

Action Buttons

Perform a number of different operations with the Add Contact and Bulk Action buttons.

Contacts/Companies List

Most of the real estate in the Contacts module is occupied by a list. You can sort this list by clicking on a column header.

To open, view, and edit a Contact, simply click anywhere on the line of the given Contact.

Module Associations

The presence of a grey icon indicates that the Contact is associated with a module.

The presence of a green icon indicates that the association is active. For example, a green Referrals icon means that the Contact is associated with an active referral and a green Outreach icon means the contact has an active Marketing Profile.

Common Workflows

Add a Contact and/or Company

Here's the general order of operations when adding a Contact.

Basically, if you want to associate the Contact with a Company, add the Company first if you haven't already. See the how-to or follow these steps.

To add a Company:

1. Click the Companies tab.
2. Click the Add Company button.
3. Enter at minimum the Company Name. Add any other information you may have.
4. Click the Create Company button.

Tip: Be sure to leverage Company Tags. Tags will come in handy for filtering, searching, and generating reports.

To add a Contact:

1. Click the Contacts tab.
2. Click the Add Contact button.
3. Enter at minimum the contact's First name and Last name, then any other fields you may have information for. Be sure to include the Company you just created.
4. Click the Save button.

Import Contacts

Similar to adding Contacts one at a time, you can import Contacts in bulk. Your general order of operations is the same. If you have Contacts that are associated with a company, you want to make sure Companies are added first.

We recommend that you first download the Contacts template and enter your contacts into the spreadsheet. This will allow you to clean up the names of the Companies before import.

Follow this how-to and learn how to import Companies and Contacts.

Merge Contacts or Companies

Duplicates happen, but there's something you can do about it. Before we get into that, let's go over some principles. When performing data hygiene, you have a few tools available to you:

• Editing a Contact
• Merging Contacts
• Deleting Contacts

The scenario in which you'll need to merge Contacts or Companies is when you have accumulated data, most notably referrals that are associated with a Contact and therefore Company. As to not lose or obscure valuable data, follow these steps to merge Contacts.