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Management

Before you can book contacts, you must of course be able to create and manage them. You can find an overview of all the options below.

Icons§

Contacts are marked with icons in the contacts finder and the contact inspector:

  • Contacts that are linked with a user (and therefore also with a human resource) appear with a black icon representing a user.
  • Contacts that are linked with a suspended user appear with the black icon of the user and a red prohibition sign.
  • Contacts that are only linked with a human resource appear with a green circle containing the letter “H” (for human resource).
  • Contacts with possible duplicates appear with a red circle containing the letter “D” (for ‘duplicate’).
  • Contacts of type “Link” appear with two black links of a chain.
  • Contacts of type “Organization” appear with a black office building.
Icon Meaning
Contact linked with an active user and a human resource.
Contact linked with a suspended user, see Suspending a User for more information.
Contact linked with a human resource.
Contacts with possible duplicates.
Contact of type “Link”.
Contact of type “Organization”.

Creating a Person§

Create a new person by clicking “New Person…” in the navigation menu item “Contacts”.

You can immediately enter the person’s basic data in the “Contact” tab of the inspector that opens. This is the personal data of this person: their name, title, address, language and some additional contact info (email address, telephone number etc.). You can also add an image to this person.

Remark

In Yesplan, an administrator can manage titles (Mrs, Mr, Miss etc.) in “System Settings” > “Contacts”.

An administrator can also set a title as the default. That way, it will automatically be filled out when creating a new person. Choosing a default is optional. If a default isn’t set, the field “Title” will simply be empty when creating a new person.

When creating a person, you can also immediately create a linked human resource.

You can also choose to link the person to an existing human resource, as long as the name matches. If you link with an existing human resource who in turn was already linked to a contact, then you’ll break the link with the old contact.

Attention

If you break this new link with the human resource, then the old contact won’t be linked again. You will have to restore it manually.

If you link a contact with a human resource that is already linked to a user, this link is continued and the contact is also linked to the user (via the human resource). When deleting a contact that is linked to a user, the link between the human resource and the user will continue to exist.

Remark

Yesplan administrators can create several additional fields related to contacts. For example, they can determine whether—in addition to the first name and last name—Yesplan also uses initials and last name prepositions (as is common in the Netherlands). You can find more information in Preferences for contacts.

Creating an Organization§

You can create a new organization by clicking “New Organization…” in the “Contacts” navigation menu item.

You can immediately enter the organization’s basic data in the “Contact” tab of the inspector that opens. This is data pertaining to the organization itself: the name, business entity, address, VAT number and additional general contact information (e.g. email address, telephone number etc.) etc. You can also add an image to this organization.

Remark

Yesplan administrators can manage business entities for organizations (such as Ltd, LLC, NPO etc.) in “System Settings” > “Contacts”.

An administrator can also set a business entity as the default. That way, it will automatically be filled out when creating a new organization. Choosing a default is optional. If no default is set, the field “Business Entity” will be empty when creating a new organization.

Multiple Addresses for Contacts§

You can store multiple addresses for a contact—a person or organization. Each address is of a certain address type, for example ‘Postbox’ or ‘Billing address’. A Yesplan administrator determines which address types are available (see the System Settings Manual, specifically the chapter Managing Address Types).

Each contact has at least one address (address type of your choosing). Exactly one address of each address type can be added to a contact, but this isn’t required.

You can mark one address per contact as default, which is then the default address of that contact. If a contact only has one address, it is automatically the default address.

In addition to requesting the default address of a contact, the query language also provides specific keywords for every different type of address that can appear for a contact. You can read all about it in the Query Language Manual in the chapter Requesting Addresses of Contacts.

The contact link presents a person’s job title at an organization.

You can add links to the person or the organization. It doesn’t matter where you add links because they are always symmetrical: if Violet is a Technician at RockIt, this will be visible under the links of Violet and the links of RockIt.

You can only link a person with an organization and vice versa. You can’t link a person with another person or an organization with another organization.

Create a link by clicking “Add a Link” on the “Links” tab of the person (or organization). Then search for the organization (or person) you want to link the contact with. If found, you can choose an existing one from the suggestion list. If it doesn’t exist yet, you can create it immediately.

Next, you can complete the contact info for the function in question: what is their job title at the organization, their department, the contact info (email address or telephone number) etc.

You can also add links to people and organizations in the contacts finder.

Remark

You can also set one of the contact links as a default link for that person or organization. This default link will mainly be used for some reports, such as the quote, and for exporting contacts from the global search. Columns with data from the default link are also exported for every person and organization.

Adding Labels§

You can add one or more labels directly to the person or the organization in the “Contact” tab of the contact inspector.

Depending on the settings, you can choose labels from the suggestion list and/or enter them into the input field that appears. When you start typing, you also refine the list that appears.

Remark

A Yesplan administrator can set the options of suggestion lists for labels in “System Settings” > “Contacts” > “Labels”.

You can also add labels to a link specifically, in other words to the function of a person in the organization. You do this on the “Links” tab of the contact inspector, under the relevant link, in the same way you do for people and organizations.

If the label was added in the correct place (the person, organization or link), then you can search for the correct contact info specifically.

In the query language chapter you will find a detailed description of the options for specific queries for people, organizations, the links between the two, contact bookings or combinations of all of these.

Duplicates§

When creating or editing a person or organization, Yesplan checks whether it was already entered, based on the degree of similarity with existing contacts. If the similarity is striking, both contacts are marked as potential duplicates. A notification will appear on the “Contact” tab. Duplicates are also marked with a red circle with the letter D next to their name in the contacts finder and in the suggestion lists of the contact fields.

All potential duplicates appear on the “Duplicates” tab where you can merge both duplicates or indicate that they aren’t duplicates.

After clicking “Merge”, you’ll see a window with two columns that display the differences between both items:

  • For each field, you can select which values you want to retain after the merge.
  • After merging the data, the bookings of both contacts are also merged.
  • After merging, all contact links of both contacts will be retained.

The merging of custom data fields goes as follows:

  • All filled-out custom data fields on the contact from which you merged (via the “Duplicates” tab) are retained.
  • Empty custom data fields on the contact you merged from are replaced by the filled-out custom data fields on the duplicate.

Remark

Merging contacts when one of the two contacts is linked to a human resource (or user) can only take place in one direction. You must always start from the contact with the link. The link is retained after the merge.

Contacts that you indicate as “Not a Duplicate” are retained. You can request them later by clicking “Show contacts that have been marked as ‘not a duplicate’” and you can then merge them.

Tip

  • Potential duplicates can also disappear by removing the similarity between both contacts. For example, if you edit the name in such a way that the similarity is no longer striking, the duplicates calculation will no longer regard this as a potential duplicate.
  • You can also request the duplicates via the query language. You’ll find a description of the options for specific queries for contact duplicates in the query language chapter.

Deleting Contacts§

If you delete a contact, it will no longer appear in search results and suggestion lists. Any contact bookings remain intact, e.g. on events. On the booking of a deleted contact, you can still click through to the contact. However, you can only view the contact info, and it’s no longer possible to modify it.

You can also wipe a contact permanently.

You delete contacts in the contacts finder. Search for the relevant contact and then choose “Delete” in the context menu (the menu that opens when right-clicking). You can select multiple items by clicking them while holding down the Ctrl key (on Windows) or Cmd key (on macOS).

Wiping Contacts Permanently§

You can wipe a contact permanently. All the contact’s personal details and all their bookings are then discarded permanently. References to the relevant contact are also removed from the list of updates, which you can consult from the navigation menu. You can only wipe people permanently, not organizations. When deleting the person, all related links are also deleted. You can’t undo this.

This allows you to permanently delete a customer’s details from your Yesplan database if they request to do so.

You wipe a contact permanently in the contacts finder:

  • Search for the person in question and then choose “Wipe Permanently” in the context menu (the menu that opens when right-clicking).
  • You can select multiple items by clicking them while holding down the Ctrl key (on Windows) or Cmd key (on macOS).
  • An extra confirmation is requested because you can’t undo this action and the deleted data can’t be recuperated.

A deleted contact, will no longer appear in the contacts finder. However, the contact can still appear in the database if it was booked on an event. You can wipe the person permanently via one of his bookings:

  1. Search for bookings of the person that you want to wipe permanently via the general search using the query contactbooking:ofcontact:{the person's name}.
  2. In the list of results, open the contact’s booking, and open the contact (at the bottom of the window).
  3. In the inspector of the deleted contact, you will see a red “Wipe Permanently” button in the first tab.

Exporting Contacts§

You can export contacts in two ways:

  1. In the contacts finder, you can download an Excel file with the contents of the query results. The file will contain the same columns in the order as they appear in the finder at the moment of exporting. Naturally, only the contacts that match the query will be exported. The order of the rows in the export is based on the sorting that you selected in the finder. Consequently, this option is the most suitable to obtain a contacts list from the fields you desire.

    The first three special columns (with a checkbox, a triangle signifying contact links, and the icons) aren’t exported. If you want the contact type (person, organization or link) in the export, then you must include the column “Type” in the finder.

  2. Via the general search, you can download a CSV file in a fixed format that is suitable for updating or importing contacts in Yesplan.

Importing Contacts§

A Yesplan administrator can import contacts. Read more about this in Importing Contacts.