Contact relations

Introduction to contact relations in ConSol CM

Contact relations are links between contacts. A link between two contacts can be created if a matching definition exists, i.e. a contact relation which allows persons and / or companies of the respective customer groups as a relation source and target.

Concepts, terms and definitions

Concept	Other terms	Definition
contact	customer, unit	Stakeholder who gave the reason for opening the case; can be either a company or a person.
person	contact	Type of contact on the lower hierarchical level
company		Type of contact on the upper hierarchical level
customer group		Group of customers with a specific contact model; basis for assigning permissions and determining the available activities and relations
contact model	customer data model	Data model for contacts; contains one or two contact objects which provide further settings
contact relation		Link between two contacts

Purpose and usage

Relations are links between objects in ConSol CM. Contacts can be linked to the following objects:

• Cases: A case can have a main contact and additional contacts. The customer groups which the contacts must belong to are defined for the queue on the Queues page, see Queues.

• Contacts: A contact can be linked to other contacts. The possible relations are defined on the Contact relations page.

• Resources: A contact can be linked to resources. The possible relations are defined on the Resource relations page, see Resource relations.

The definition of a contact relation includes the customer group and the type of object (person, company) of the source and target contact. Two contacts can be linked if a matching contact relation exists, e.g. the person “James Smith” of the customer group “End customer” can be linked to the company “Computer supplies” of the customer group “Resellers” if the following contact relation exists:

• Source: The contact from which the creation of the link is initiated.

  • Customer group: End customers

  • Level: Person or All

• Target: The contact which is selected when creating the link.

  • Customer group: Resellers

  • Level: Company or All

There is no limit to the number of relations which can be created for a contact, i.e. a contact can have several relations, of the same or different relation types, to any number of contacts. In the Web Client, the relations are shown in the Relations section of the contact page.

Settings for contact relations

The following basic settings are available for contact relations:

• Internal name: Mandatory. The technical name of the relation.

• Type: Mandatory. The type of relation determines whether the relation has the same or different names for each side. There are two possible values:

  • Directional: The relation has two names, one for the source contact and one for the target contact.

  • Reference: The relation has the same name for the source and target contact.

• Transferred to the DWH: Optional. If selected, the relation is transferred to the data warehouse.

• Can only be set via script: Optional. If selected, the relation cannot be created, modified or removed in the Web Client. It is displayed in the Web Client but manipulated by script using methods of the class UnitRelationService.

• Localized name: Optional, only reference relations. Determines the name of the relation on both the source and the target side, when viewing the relations as a graph.

• Localized description: Optional, only reference relations. Determines the name of the relation on both the source and the target side, when creating a relation or viewing the relations as a list.

The following settings are available for the relation source, i.e. the contact for which the relation is created:

• Customer group: Mandatory. Determines the customer group of the source contact.

• Level: Mandatory. Determines the type of object of the source contact, i.e. its level in the hierarchy. The possible values depend on the contact model used for the selected customer group. For two-level models, the values Person, Company and All (both persons and companies) are available. For one-level models, the level present in the model is preselected.

• Localized description: Optional, only directional relations. Determines the name of the relation on the source side, i.e. the description which is displayed in the Web Client on the page of the contact where the relation is created, when viewing the relations as a list.

The following settings are available for the relation target, i.e. the contact to which the relation is created:

• Customer group: Mandatory. Determines the customer group of the target contact.

• Level: Mandatory. Determines the type of object of the target contact, i.e. its level in the hierarchy. The possible values depend on the contact model used for the selected customer group. For two-level models, the values Person, Company and All (both persons and companies) are available. For one-level models, the level present in the model is preselected.

• Localized description: Optional, only directional relations. Determines the name of the relation on the target side, i.e. the description which is displayed in the Web Client on the page of the contact which is selected when creating the relation, when viewing the relations as a list.

Basic tasks

Managing contact relations

Contact relations are managed on the Contact relations page of the Web Admin Suite. The following actions are available:

• Create a new contact relation
  Click the New relation button above the list of contact relations or duplicate an existing contact relation by clicking the Duplicate icon of a relation. Provide the required settings, see Settings for contact relations.

• Edit a contact relation
  Click the Edit icon or contact relation’s row and update the desired data, see Settings for contact relations.

• Sort the contact relations
  There are two ways to sort the contact relations. You can either drag each relation to the desired position or use the Move up and Move down icons to determine the order. This way, you determine the order in which the relations are displayed in the Relations section of the Web Client.

• Deactivate a contact relation
  You can deactivate contact relation by clicking the Deactivate icon.

  If you deactivate a contact relation, it is not possible to create new relations of this type. Existing relations are still displayed in the Web Client, but they cannot be modified or deleted.

• Activate a contact relation
  You can activate contact relations which are deactivated by clicking the Activate icon.

• Delete a contact relation
  You can delete a contact relation which is not set for any contact by clicking the Delete icon.