How to Add and Edit a Customer's Contacts
A customer's contacts are the people you deal with at that customer: who to ring, who gets the e-mails. They are on Contacts, the third item on the customer screen's sections rail, and the first three also appear on the Overview's Contacts card. A contact is saved on its own with Save contact, separately from the customer.
How do I add a contact to a customer?
To add a contact, open the customer, select Contacts on the sections rail, select Add contact, fill in the person's details in the sheet that slides in, and select Save contact. You do not need to save the customer as well.
- Open the customer from Customers.
- Select Contacts on the sections rail, or the Contacts page link on the Overview's Contacts card.
- Select Add contact.
- Type at least a First name or a Last name in the New contact sheet, and anything else you know.
- Select Save contact at the bottom of the sheet.
The sheet closes, the contact list is read again, and a short message says the contact was saved. A new contact starts with the customer's name in Company and the customer's mailing address in its Address lines, so for most people you only type their name and how to reach them.
The Overview's Contacts card has no add button: adding is always done on Contacts. A new customer has to be saved before contacts can be added, so Contacts is greyed out on the rail until then.
What can I fill in on the contact sheet?
The contact sheet on the customer screen, headed New contact or Contact and "for" the customer's name, has five parts:
- Who: Salutation, First name, Last name, File as, Position and Company. File as is how the contact is filed; leave it empty and it is made from the name as "Last, First".
- How to reach them: Business e-mail, Home e-mail, Business phone, Mobile, Home phone and Fax.
- Address: Street 1, Street 2, City, County / state, Post code and Country.
- E-mail rules: Always e-mail ("Service e-mails and dockets go to this person"), E-mail manual invoices and E-mail recurring invoices.
- Notes: "Anything the next person should know".
Some boxes on the contact sheet are short: First name holds 20 characters, Last name 25 and Salutation 15, and each box stops taking letters at its limit.
The foot of the sheet says "Saved on its own. You do not need to save the customer as well." Select Save contact to save, or Cancel, the close button, or anywhere outside the sheet to close it without saving. Closing the contact sheet that way throws away what you typed in it straight away, without asking first.
To choose which contacts are sent the service docket automatically once an engineer's visit on a call is marked Finished, use Docket & e-mail in the customer screen's sections rail.
Why can't I save a contact?
Save contact on the customer screen's contact sheet will not save a contact with no name: hover over it and it says "A contact needs a name". Type a First name or a Last name (one is enough, although both are marked with an asterisk) and it works. The name is required because ABM builds the contact's identity from it.
If the save is refused for another reason, such as a box longer than the database allows, the reason appears in a red box inside the sheet and your typing stays where it is. While the contact is being saved the button reads Saving…, and Cancel and the close button wait until it has finished.
If you leave the customer screen with a half-typed contact open, for example with the browser's Back, ABM Service keeps it for you as a reminder in the bottom-left corner of the screen marked unsaved, named "Contact —" followed by the name as it is filed (last name first), or New contact when no name is typed yet. Select the reminder to reopen the sheet on that customer with your typing intact.
How do I edit a customer's contact?
To edit a contact, select the pencil button on the contact's row, "Edit" followed by their name, either on Contacts or on the Overview's Contacts card. The Contact sheet opens with their details; change what you need and select Save contact.
Each row in the contact list shows the person's name, their position, their e-mail and their mobile or business phone. If they have no e-mail it says "no e-mail". A customer with no contacts at all says Nobody on this account yet. The Contacts page itself is headed with the number of contacts and "The people on this account; one of them may also belong to another customer."
To write to a contact in a web browser, select their e-mail address in the customer screen's contact list: your usual mail program opens with the address filled in, and you write and send the message there, because ABM Service does not send e-mails itself. In the ABM Service desktop app the address does not open your mail program; open the contact with the pencil button, copy the address from Business e-mail with Ctrl and C together (Ctrl+C), and paste it into a new message.
What is a shared contact?
A shared contact is a person who belongs to another customer and is also linked to this one, for example somebody who looks after several sites. In the customer screen's contact list a shared contact shows the other customer's name under their position; select that name to open the other customer.
A shared contact is one record, not a copy. When you open one to edit it, the sheet warns you first: "Shared contact. This person belongs to another customer as well — a change here changes it there too."
That warning covers the person's own details: their name, phones, e-mails, address, notes and Always e-mail. Two choices on the contact sheet are the exception. E-mail manual invoices and E-mail recurring invoices are kept separately for each customer the contact is linked to, so ticking or clearing either one on the customer screen changes it only for the customer you have open. If a shared contact should receive invoices for every account they look after, set those two choices on each of those customers.
How do I delete a contact, and what is the difference from unlinking?
To take a contact off a customer, select the bin button on the contact's row on the customer screen. What it does depends on whose contact it is, and hovering over the button tells you before you press it:
- "Delete" followed by the name and "everywhere": the contact belongs to this customer, and it is deleted completely, from every customer it is linked to. You see Contact deleted.
- "Unlink" followed by the name and "from this customer": the contact belongs to another customer. It is only removed from this one and stays on its own customer. You see Unlinked from this customer.
Warning: There is no "are you sure?" question. The contact is deleted or unlinked the moment you select the button, and a deleted contact cannot be brought back; you would have to add it again.
If the delete or unlink fails, the reason appears in a red box above the fields on the customer screen and the contact stays where it was.
Linking an existing contact from another customer is not something the customer screen offers in this version. To have the same person on this customer too, add them to this customer with Add contact in the Contacts section of the customer screen: that makes a separate contact for this customer, so a later change to one is not made to the other.