External Contacts Management lets you store and find information about people outside your organisation, including names, email addresses, phone numbers and others.

It also lets your track all your company's interactions with your external contacts.

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External Contacts vs Contacts

External Contacts and Workspace - Contacts have the same features and functionalities in managing people outside your organisation.

However, when uploading and downloading, editing or deleting external contacts in bulk, we recommended that you use External Contact Management located in your Dashboard - Contacts Management menu.

Meanwhile, the Contacts located in your Workspace (Dashboard and App) is best when adding, searching, editing, and removing individual contacts. More so, when making outbound calls or sending an SMS text to them.

You can view your contacts by category (e.g., External Contacts, Internal Contacts) and update their information.

 

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CINNOX External Contact Management does not automatically detect and alert your duplicate entries for your contacts. You can merge your contacts manually or based on the suggestions when handling an enquiry by their phone number or email address.
See more details in our Merging Contact section of this Guide.

Creating New External Contacts

Manually Create a Contact

To manually create an external contact

• From the navigation menu, go to Contact Management>External Contacts then click on Create Contact located at the top of the screen.

 

• A Create Contact pop-up window will appear.

 

• Fill out or select the appropriate values for the following fields:
  • First Name
  • Last Name (Required)
  • Type (Type refers to the category of contact with your business. On the Type dropdown list, select any of the following values: Lead (default selection), Prospect, Customer or Other.)
  • Mobile (Click on the dropdown list to select country and fill out the phone number.)
  • Email
• Select the button Save and create new to save the entered details and create a new Contact without leaving the screen.

 

• To view and fill out additional contact details, click on More Details.

 

Fill out the follwing fields displayed on the window:

• Personal Information

  • Level (Level refers to the tier of contact with your business target. E.g. John Doe is the CEO while Jane Smith is the PA of the company ABC. John is the primary contact, while Jane is the secondary. On the Level dropdown list, select any of the following values: Primary (default selection), Secondary and Tertiary. )

• Phone number. (Click on Add new phone number to select phone number type, such as Mobile, Work, Home or Other and select the country/region. Also fill out the phone number. Click on Add if you complete filling out the form.)

• Email address. (Click on Add new email to select email type, such as Work, Personal and Other. And fill out the email address. Click on Add if you complete filling out the form.)

• Other Information

  • Company
  • Job title
  • Team
  • Group
  • Language (On the dropdown list, select either English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese)
  • Birth Date

• Mailing Address

  • Zip code
  • Street
  • City
  • State
  • Country (Click on the dropdown list, select the country)

• Custom Field (The number of custom fields available depends on the number of custom fields created. For details about the custom fields, refer to Managing Custom Field - External Contacts )

• Social Messaging (Click on Add New Social Media to select any of the social media, such as Messager, WhatsApp, WeChat, LIN, Twitter, LinkedIn, WOZTELL (Whatsapp Cloud), WOZTELL (Facebook) or WOZTELL (Instagram). And Enter the User Name/ID of the corresponding social media platform you selected. Click on Add if you complete filling out the form.)

• Click on Create.

 

• The newly created external contactis created and added to your External Contacts List.

 

Importing Contacts (Bulk Creation)

• From the navigation menu, go to Contact Management > External Contacts, then click on Import located at the top of the screen.

 

• On the Import window that will pop out, download and open the CSV template file.

• Open the downloaded CSV template file and remove the sample first record.

• Add your Contacts according to the following guidelines:

  • Last Name is a mandatory field
  • Phone numbers should start with a "+" followed by the country code, area code, and phone number (e.g., +85212345678)
  • Email addresses should have a valid format (e.g., [email protected])
  • Birthdate format should be MM/DD/YYYY (e.g., 12/14/1980)
  • Language value should be in any of the following: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese
  • The country value should be in any of the country names listed in https://www.iban.com/country-codes
  • Contact Type value should be any of the following: Lead, Customer, Prospect, or Others. When left empty, the Contact Type value is automatically set to Lead.
  • Contact Level value should be any of the following: Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary

• Save the updated CSV file.

• Upload the saved CSV file. Back on the Import pop-up window, drag and drop the saved CSV file into the window.

  • You may also click on Browse from the pop-up window, then locate and select the CSV file from your folder.

 

• A message will display the number of records that were successfully imported, as well as the number of records that failed.

 

Handling Failed Records

• On the pop-up window, click on Download to download the file ErrorDetail.csv.

 

• Click on Cancel to close the pop-up window.
• Open ErrorDetail.csv and check the error details in column AA. Each record will show an error log.

 

• Correct the details for each record directly on ErrorDetail.csv and save the changes made.
• Back on the Import pop-up window, upload the updated ErrorDetail.csv file by dragging and dropping the file into the window.
  • You may also click on Browse from the pop-up window, then locate and select the CSV file from your folder.
• A message will display the number of records successfully imported, as well as the number of records that failed.

 

How to handle the case of the splitting text in the CSV file

Using a comma (,) to split the text is the function of the CSV file. When importing the CSV file with the comma between texts, the text will be split into the next column in the file after the file upload.

Splitting text in the CSV file

For example, when you enter Head of Marketing, Asia Division and Manager, HR and Administration
into the column Title respectively, the file is shown below:

 

After the file upload, the text is shown below:

 

As the text Head of Marketing, Asia Division and Manager, HR and Administration are added in the column Title respectively, after the filled CSV file is uploaded, the texts are split into two columns, Head of Marketing and Manager in the column Title respectively and Asia Division and HR and Administration in the column Team respectively.

 

How to avoid splitting text

Using a text editor

• Put the text with a comma in the double quote (“”), like "Head of Marketing, Asia Division" and "Manager, HR and Administration" and save it as a CSV file when you upload the file.

Using Excel or style sheet editors

• Fill in the text in the text format.

 

• Save the sheet as a CSV file and upload it to the CINNOX.

 

• The double quote should be added automatically to the file.

 

Searching External Contacts

• You can search for individual contacts by typing in their Contact Name or Email Address in the search bar.

Export External Contact

To export external contacts into a CSV file:

• From the navigation menu, go to Contact Management > External Contacts, then click on Download located at the top of the screen.

• The file Contact.csv file will be downloaded into your default Downloads folder. This CSV file contains the external contact records you created and shared with you.

 

External Contact Details

• On the External Contacts page, click on an external contact's name or click on More(...) and select View Contact.

• The External Contact Details has the following tabs:
  • Profile
  • Activity
  • Sharing
  • Change Log

 

External Contact Profile

The Profile tab has the Personal Information entered by the external contact on the pre-chat form or offline support form or manually entered by the staff member.

• Phone Numbers
• Personal Information
  • First Name and other first names selected from merge contact
  • Last Name and other last names selected from merge contact
• Phone number
• Email address
• Other Information
• Custom field
• Social Messaging
  • Messenger
  • WhatsApp
  • WeChat
  • LINE
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • WOZTELL (WhatsApp Cloud)
  • WOZTELL (Facebook)
  • WOZTELL (Instagram)
• Device Information
• Notes (If any)

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Important Note

You cannot edit verified phone numbers and social media IDs.

 

Editing External Contact Profile

• On the External Contacts page, click on a Contact Name or click on More (...) and select View Contact. The Contact Details will then display four categories.

• Under the Profile tab, click Edit Information to enable the editing mode.

 

• Enter the details you are required to add to or update in the contact's profile.

• Click on Save.

 

Activity

The Activity tab has the Enquiry History, Engagement, and Journey sections, which are separated into three columns:

 

A closed is denoted by is a blue-coloured hyperlink. Clicking on it to open the enquiry's chat conversation history.

 

Sharing

The Sharing tab has information shared with the External Contact's owners. It also indicates when was the contact created.

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The admin or contact owner can remove the contact being shared with another staff member.

 

Change Log

The Change Log tab has details regarding the updates made to the External Contact. It displays the last five records.

 

Merging External Contacts

If you have duplicate contacts for the same person, you can merge them.

To merge contacts:

• On the External Contacts page, search and click on a Contact Name or click on More (...) and select View Contact for the contact you want to merge.
• On the Profile tab, click Merge Contact button. A pop-up window will show the list of Contacts that could merge with.

 

• Search and choose for the contact to merge
• Click the Next button. It will display two contacts' information. The first selected contact will be the Master Contact to be kept the second contact records merged.

 

• These contacts may contain different details. You may keep the old and copy the new records or replace them with the new ones.
• Select for the records you want to keep and replace
• Click the Merge Contat button to complete the steps. Once completed, it will display a toast message "Merge Contact successfully".
• The Contact's Profile is updated with what has been selected to be kept and updated.

 

All activities and enquiries will be merged and viewed on just one page for merge contacts. For more details about merge contacts and merged rooms view, see Merging Contacts section of this Guide.

 

Sharing External Contacts

As an owner or a staff administrator, you can share External Contacts with your fellow staff members.

• On the External Contacts page, click on More (..) and select Share Contact.

 

• On the Contact List page that will be displayed, select the staff member(s) you wish to share the External Contact's details with.
• Click on Share. A pop-up message will appear, asking you to confirm the action.
• Click on Confirm.

 

Transferring External Contact Ownership

As an owner or a staff administrator, you can transfer your External Contact ownership to a fellow staff member.

• On the External Contacts page, click on More(..) and select Transfer Ownership.

 

• On the Contact List page that will be displayed, select the staff member you wish to transfer your External Contact's details to.

• Click on Transfer.

 

Deleting External Contacts

As an owner or a staff administrator, you can delete External Contacts.

• On the External Contacts page, click on More(...) and select Delete Contact. A pop-up message will appear, asking you to confirm the action.

• Click on Delete.