Contact Management (13)

How do I add a new contact to the database?

Add any new contacts from various places in SpinOffice. For instance in your Home screen, the Inbox, the Contacts screen or via the main menu. In all cases, the following screen appears: Fill in the relevant information and go to the sub items on the left to add more information about the contact.  In the field ‘Contact type’ you are able to indicate which type of contact you would like to add. For instance a company, supplier, personal friend, prospect etc. Define your own contact types under menu option Administration -> Contact types. When you add an email address to the contact, use "Link all email messages to this contact" when you want to have all emails in its archive too. Tick the checkbox and SpinOffice will collect all the emails within the database and stores them in the contact's archive. When you have filled in all the contact's information, click on Save and SpinOffice will create a new contact and add it to the database. Add multiple contacts through a mass import. At this moment, mass import from .CSV / .XLS file, Mac Contacts, Office 365 or Mailchimp is possible. Read here how to do a mass import.

How do I adjust a contact's details?

On the Contact list screen, go to the contact you wish to edit, click on the 'hamburger' icon on the right side and choose Edit contact details. Or click directly on the Edit icon in the contact widget.   In both cases, the contact details are shown and you can add all relevant information. Even the data in the left sub items: When done, just click on Save and SpinOffice processes the changes. The popup will close.

What can I do with Contact types?

Use contact types to differentiate your business contacts. It allows you to: filter your contacts On the Contact list screen, you have the Filter contacts option on top. Us that to filter all your contacts based on any contact type. This way you get an overview of your customers, hot prospects or suppliers. manage user access Go to menu option ;Administration -> User settings -> Contact types to determine which user may have access to which contact types, and thus to groups of contacts. define which contact types to sync  Go to menu option Administration -> User settings -> Synchronization to define which contact types should be in sync on your mobile devices When adding new contacts, both individually and by mass import, the contact type is a required field to fill. As you can see, this is an important field in the database. Important: A contact in your database can only have one contact type.

How do I add a new Contact type?

Contact types is an important tool in SpinOffice. It allows you to differentiate your business contacts. Read this article to learn more. You can add unlimited number of contact types to the database. Go to menu option Administration -> Contact types to see all contact types in your database. See here an example: Click on the '+' on the right side to add a new contact type. An empty line is added at the bottom where you can add a new type. Give a name an pick a color. Click on Save on the right side to save the entry and it is added as contact type. Now you can use this for any contact. Do you now want to give a group of contacts the newly added contact type? That is easy! Perform a mass contact change on the Contact list screen.

How do I import contacts from Mac Address book?

Contacts from your Mac Address Book can easily be imported into SpinOffice. Go to menu option Extra -> Import -> Contacts. Click on the Mac Contacts icon. SpinOffice will automatically start importing all your Mac Contacts. A progress bar is shown. Please wait approximately 10 seconds while all your Apple contacts will be imported. Please note that we only give you the option to import them all, so not individual Mac contacts. All imported Mac contacts will get the contact type “Personal Contacts”. If you want to have them in sync on your iPhone and iPad go to menu option Administration -> User settings -> Synchronization and enable a CardDAV sync account. A manual with how to enable the account on your devices is instantly sent to you. Do you have many duplicates after importing your Mac contacts? Then it's better to import your Mac contacts via Excel instead of the fast import. Follow the steps here to import them without duplicates.

How do I import my contacts from Gmail?

Follow the steps below to have a successful import of your Gmail contacts: Go to your contact list in Gmail. Click on the ‘More’ button and than ‘Export’. Choose export format ‘Google CSV’ and click on ‘Export’. Your file will be downloaded on your computer. Keep in mind where it is placed. Open Microsoft Excel en choose a new sheet. Choose menu item ‘Data’ and select ‘Import external data > text’. Choose the Gmail .CSV file. As file type you select ‘Separate’ and click on ‘Next’. As separator you select ‘Comma’. Click on ‘Next’ and ‘Finish’. Open the data file in Excel or Numbers. Remove errors and weird punctuation like these * :::. Save the file on a place you remember in a minute. Open your SpinOffice. Go to Extra -> Import -> Contacts -> .CSV, XLS or .XLSX format Browse the file on your computer and select it. SpinOffice will show you what he found as data. You only have to match your columns with SpinOffice format. We help you with the matching. To have a successful match; the fields first name, surname and email address have to be filled. SpinOffice guides you through the matching proces and gives you a signal when you can implement the import. This way we help you, we prevent failures in your data and you keep your database clean and up to date!

How do I do a bulk action for contact changes or group mailings?

All your business contacts can be found on the Contact list screen. On this screen you can use filters to perform mass actions such as bulk contact changes and sending group mailings. Both are based on filters. A bulk contact change can be filling in or changing a value of a field, contact type, tag or keyword for a group of contacts. Or moving values in one field to another field, a tag or keyword. Sending a group mailing is also possible on the basis of a filter. It will be included at the bottom of this support article. Here are the steps for a bulk contact change: Click Filter contacts at the top of the screen, or choose one of the filter options within the contact widget on the right. Whichever option you choose, in all cases SpinOffice will indicate what you want to filter on: Choose Filter contacts to pick any field in SpinOffice that you want to filter on. You can define the conditions of your choice for your selection; e.g. "company name is...", or "contact type is not...", or "zip code contains...". If you choose a field on the right by clicking on the 'filter' icon, all contacts will be filtered with the same value. Apply the desired filter (for example by selecting on contact type, info field, tag or keyword). All contacts are shown in the place where your contacts normally are. See an example below. We have opted for a filter on the tag 'hot prospect'. All 12 hot prospects are shown: Now you can make a bulk contact change. Click on Mass Actions at the top of the screen: The following options are displayed: Choose the desired option: Bulk contact change The following screen appears. Determine what you want to do with the filtered contacts. In our example, the 12 hot prospects. Select a field you want to be filled or changed for your filtered group. Click on Change to perform the action. Send group mailing Use this option to send a mailing to this filtered group of contacts. A new screen opens where you can type a message or pick an existing template to send it out to all. Learn here how to do that. Add to favorites This option will disappear soon. It allows you to add the filtered relations to a favorites group. Add tag to contacts Easy option to give an existing tag to all the filtered contacts. Delete contacts Delete all filtered contacts in a snap. Be careful because this option is irreversible. After implementing the desired bulk action, the changes are immediately visible in your database. The ability to create filters and the associated possibility of mass actions are therefore an extremely powerful feature in SpinOffice.

How do tags work?

Use tags to distinguish and group your business contacts. Decide for yourself which tags you want to use for your contacts. For example, make a distinguish between certain products or services, categories, a certain status or customer characteristics. Then give the correct tag(s) to any contact in your CRM. This way you can search, categorize and filter your contacts even more efficiently. How do you tag your contacts? When you add or edit a contact in SpinOffice, you will find the tags as a tab on the left side of the Add contact screen. Add new or predefined tags here for this specific contact. It is also possible to add tags directly from the Contact screen. To do that, go through these steps: Go to the Contact screen. Find the desired contact for which you want to add tags. You will find the tags widget on the right. Add tags as you want by entering them manually. Or choose previously selected tags from a drop-down list.  AAll added tags are immediately shown. Go through your contacts to add your tags. You have an unlimited number of tags at your disposal. Manage all tags As mentioned, you can determine and manage all your tags yourself. Go to the main menu and choose option Administration -> Tags. Here you can add and remove an unlimited number of tags. See an example below. All tags that you have manually used for contacts are also shown in this screen. Important: In the Pro and Enterprise versions you have access to tag groups. This offers the possibility to create categories and use different colors. Search and filter contacts based on tags Searching by tags is very easy. Start the search with a hashtag "#" and then enter the tag. Below is an example where we filter on the tag "hot prospect". Pressing #hot will show the tag. Click on the tag in search list and all contacts with the tag "hot prospect" will be filtered and displayed. Another way to make a filter of your contact based on a filter is to create a filter on an existing tag at a contact. First, go to a contact that has the tag you want to filter on. Then click on the 'tag' icon next to the tag shown.  Choose Apply filter. All contact with this tag are filtered and shown. Removing tags Of course you can easily remove the tags from an individual contact by clicking on the 'tag' icon next to the displayed tag and choosing Delete. Do you want to delete an entire tag? Then go to menu option Administration -> Tags and remove the tag itself. The tag will be removed for all contacts. Watch the following short video where we explain to you how tags work in SpinOffice and what you can do with it.

How do I filter contacts for mailings?

All your business contacts can be found on the Contact list screen. On this screen you can perform mass actions by means of filters, including sending a group mailing. Sending group mailings is only available in Pro and Enterprise versions. Here are the steps: First decide on the basis of which criteria you want to create your group mailing. This can be based on a contact type, tag, keyword or any contact field. Then create your filter. This is a few ways to do that. Click Filter contacts at the top of the screen or choose one of the filter options within the Contact widget on the right. Whichever option you choose, in all cases SpinOffice will indicate what you want to filter on: If you choose the Filter contacts option, you can create the desired conditions for your selection yourself; for example "company name is...", or "contact type is...", or "zip code contains...". If you choose a filter options within the Contact widget, all contacts will be filtered with the same value. Apply the desired filter. As an example we choose the label 'hot prospects' to send a mailing to. All contacts are shown in the place where your contacts normally are. See below. All 12 'hot prospects' are shown: Then click on Mass Actions at the top of the screen: The following options are displayed: Choose Send group mailing. A new screen will open where you can type a message in the default template. Fill the template with content or choose an existing email template at the bottom. Make sure to enter a subject. That is mandatory. This is also the subject as the recipients see it. At the top you can change your sender identity, at the bottom the option to send the mailing as a private message. Is your template ready to send? Then click Send at the top left. Choose Create concepts or Send. If you choose Create concepts, these can be found in the Concepts folder in your Inbox.

How do I get my contacts in sync with my mobile devices?

It is possible to synchronize all SpinOffice contacts between SpinOffice and Apple’s Contacts app on an iPhone, iPad and Mac. Even when you do not have all Apple Contacts in SpinOffice yet!! Go to menu option Administration -> User settings -> Synchronization to enable the sync account. Instantly a CardDAV-account is created and the manual how to configure this account on your iPhone or iPad is sent to you by email. Synchronization with Android devices is also possible. The sync is pretty cool in combination with the import of your Apple contacts. The ideal sequence of steps is: First, make SpinOffice the basis of all contact information. So, import your Apple Contacts from your Mac Address Book via menu option Extra -> Import -> Contacts. Import other mass contacts via Excel (also via Extra -> Import -> Contacts). Enable the CardDAV sync account via User settings menu. Define in that screen which contact types you want to have in sync. On your iPhone / iPad, follow the steps mentioned in the manual we have sent to you by email. The CardDAV-acount has now been created. Open the Contacts app and go to “Groups” in left to corner to activate the SpinOffice group. All contacts you have marked in SpinOffice to be in sync (based on contact type), are now in sync on all devices where you have configured the CardDAV-account!! Let us know when you need any support with the configuration.

How to convert Mac Address Book vCards to Excel / CSV in order to import them in SpinOffice

Go to Mac Contacts application on your local machine Select all contacts that you have there via 'Cmd+A' Drag the selection your desktop It becomes a collective vCard file Go to this online tool: Online vCard Converter Upload the collective vCard file Select Format CSV, Comma and tick 'Add header line' Unicoding is oke Click on 'Convert' The file will be in your Downloads folder The file is now ready to import in SpinOffice. Open SpinOffice and go to menu option Extra; Import; Contacts; CSV, XLS format and upload the new CSV file. Start the matching proces of Excel columns and SpinOffice fields and when done you're ready to bring them all in into your CRM system!

Can I view logs of changes made to contact details?

Yes, that's possible. This is useful to see who has changed contact details and to be able to restore old data. In the Contact list screen, search for the contact for which you want to view all changes and click on the 'humburger' icon on the right and choose menu option View changes. The following screen is displayed: You can see what has changed in the past for the relevant contact, when and who made the changes. Within this screen you have the option to filter on a specific period and on a colleague / user. To revert a specific change, tick it on the left and click Restore changes to apply the change. The screen will close and the adjustment will be made. If it is not possible to retrieve the desired information, please contact us. We may be able to help you.

How to create Parent-Child Relationships?

It is possible to link contacts as an employee to an employer or company card in SpinOffice. This creates a so-called 'parent-child' relationship. This can be done with existing contacts in the database as well as for new contacts. Link an existing contact as employee to an employer card Navigate to the contact card that you want to link as employee to any company. Go to the CONTACTS tab below the contact card and click on '+' in left bottom corner: Select the first option 'Link to Employer'. Following notification appears: Choose 'Yes', and we ask you to search and select the company card in your database that should become the employer / company of this individual contact: Once you have selected the employer / company of your choice, SpinOffice shows you the employee link as follows. The company is mentioned under the CONTACTS tab, and Address line1 (Company name) is a hyperlink. On click on the hyperlink you jump to the employer / company card. Add a new contact as employee to an employer card It is also possible to add new contacts to SpinOffice as employee to a company 'parent'. To do that, go to the company card in SpinOffice, click on the '+' icon in CONTACTS tab and select the second option 'Add employee'. The 'Add contact' screen appears with the address details of the company already filled in. On Save, the employee gets a contact card and the link to the employer / company card is shown as in the last image above.