This screen displays all of Contacts from every Contract Group that you have access
to manage.
Contacts are much like any Address Book in other programs, and hold the basic contact
information for any individual person. Contacts are organized into one of more Contact
Groups.
Contacts also hold other properties that allow them to be integrated into other
features of your website. Some Contacts are simply names and addresses that are stored
online, while others are connected to mailing lists, Users, Members, and Affiliates.
Based on the properties the Contact has, we identify them as a "Contact",
"Subscriber", "Member", or an "Affiliate". Members and Affiliates will also have
a User account that corresponds to their Contact.
IMPORTANT: When necessary, Contacts are automatically connected to Users, however not
all Users have a contact. The User account holds the login information and access
rights, while the Contact holds the individuals basic contact information for the User,
along with the Membership status, and Affiliate status.
Contacts share information with their corresponding User account, and with the built-in
interactive Pages like the My Account Pages, Custom Form Pages, E-mail Campaigns, and
Checkout processes. These updates happen automatically by the system. For example, when
a User logs in and views their My Account Page, and change their e-mail address, their
User Account and their Contact are both updated with the new e-mail address.
You can move and organize Contacts into one or more Contact Groups. The built-in registration processes can place a Contact in a Contact Group, as can Custom Forms, and when completing an Order, and event when ordering a specific Product.
Contact screens allow you to displays any of the Contacts that you have access to. Filters allow you to narrow your view of the Contacts. The Opt-In number at the top of the view indicates how many Contacts in the view are also Subscribers.
The Date Range filter allows you to narrow your view of Contact to a specific date range when the Contacts were last modified (or created).
The Keyword Search filter allows you to search for a specific keyword throughout all the Contacts in the current view. Press "Clear" to remove the Keyword Search.
The Contact Group filter allows you to narrow your view to only a particular Contact Group. Select the Contact Group and click "Update".
TIP: Next to the Contact Group is a numeric value that indicates how many Contacts are in that Group.
The Advanced Filters will allow you to further limit the Contacts that appear in the
view. Clicking "Remove Advanced Filters" will clear the Advanced Filters for the
view.
TIP: To reset all the filters and display all the Contacts you have access to, click
"Remove Advanced Filters" if you have Advanced Filters showing, then press "Clear" to
remove any Keyword Search, and finally select the "[All]" Contact Group, and click
"Update".
You can show and hide the Contact Groups for Contacts by clicking on the "Show/Hide
Contact Groups" link.
Contacts can be created through the Control Panel by any Contact Manager one at a
time, or they can be created automatically by the system when a Visitor registers as a
Guest or Member.
To add a Contact manually, click on "Create Contact" to create a new Contact.
If you need to add many Contacts at one time, you can click "Import
Contacts".
To create a Contact automatically:
To understand how Contacts gets created automatically, let's walk through an example. In this example, a Visitor enters your website. They decide to register as a Guest to access some Guest Access Pages and Files. When they register, a Contact is created and linked to their User account (which is also created during registration). Their Contact will also be added to the Registered Guest Contact Group (so that they might receive your next e-mail campaign e-newsletter, for instance).
Contacts contain be imported and assigned to a Contact Group from a spreadsheet (CSV
file).
You can also import Contacts for Unregistered Guests but they will still need to submit
a Registration Entrance Page so that a User account can be created and they can become
a Registered User and login.
You can also import Contacts for Unregistered Members (by including a Member ID field)
but they will still need to submit a Membership Entrance Page so that a User account
can be created and they can become a Registered Member and login.
You can also import Contacts for Unregistered Affiliates but they will still need to
submit an Affiliate Sign Up Form Page so that a User account can be created. Once
the approval process is complete, they will become a Registered
Affiliate.
TIP: All the fields found in the Microsoft Outlook Address Book are available so you
can easily import directly from and Outlook Address Book export file.
Click on "Import Contacts" to import your Contacts.
You can e-mail any Contact that has a valid e-mail address and has "Opt-in" status for their Contact, and any Contact Groups that they have subscribed too. To e-mail Contacts, you will need to be a Campaign Manager, and you can click on the [CAMPAIGN] tab to begin the process.
To update a Contact manually through the Control Panel, click on the Contact you
wish to update.
You can also select several Contacts and set their "Opt-in" or "Opt-out" status which
will affect whether they will receive any e-mail Campaigns.
NOTE: Even Contacts without User accounts can follow the "update my e-mail preferences"
link in any e-mail message they receive from a Campaign and update their own e-mail
address, opt-in status, and subscriptions. (However, they will not have access to
any other My Account Pages until they register.)
To understand how Contacts get updated automatically, let's walk through an example. In
this example, a Registered Guest (Contact has been created and linked to their User
account).
This is only one example of the many ways in which you can automatically updates Contacts. The good news is that you don't have to do any of this "web plumbing" yourself. the system handles all the data management for you - you just add Pages and link them together.
Select the Contact you wish to add or remove from a Contact Group and select "Organize Contacts". This feature is only accessible when you have clicked "Show Groups" in the Contact screen heading.
You can easily export any or all Contacts to your local computer that can be opened
with a spreadsheet or word processing program.
Filter the Contacts view until you have all the Contacts you want to export, and click
on "Export Contacts" to create a download text file (CSV file).
Filter the Contacts view until you have all the Contacts you want to delete, and click on "Delete Contacts".
WARNING: When you Delete Contacts, all Contacts in the currently filtered view are deleted (even though you can only see the first screen of Contacts that will be deleted).
WARNING: Take care when deleting Contacts, there is no undo. Once you confirm the deletion, the Contact data is gone!
TIP: You might want to export the Contacts to create a backup copy of the data before you delete.