Working with contacts within cases

This chapter explains the concept of contacts in ConSol CM and provides information about the contact-related tasks which you can perform within cases.

Introduction to contacts

Contacts represent the external side of the CM system. The contact is the person or object that is the reason for creating the case and is usually informed once work on the case has been completed. This can be, for example, clients who purchased your company's products or colleagues who receive IT support from your team.

It depends on the process, if the cases have contacts. There are two possibilities:

• All the cases in the process must have a main contact. This is the usual configuration where the contact represents the external side of the case.
• The cases in the process cannot have contacts. This is useful for scenarios where contacts are not needed, for example, FAQ or news processes, or use cases which do not require contacts from a business perspective.

The following sections only apply to processes where the cases must have contacts. Cases which cannot have contacts, do not have a Contacts section.

Contacts in cases

There are two kinds of contacts in cases:

• Main contact
  The contact who gives the reason for creating a case. A case must have exactly one main contact. The main contact is mandatory; you cannot create a case without a main contact.
• Additional contacts
  Any contact who is interested in the case. An additional contact can have a contact role which describes why the contact was added to the case. Additional contacts are optional. A case can have any number of additional contacts.

Both the main contact and the additional contacts can be persons and/or companies. It depends on your system configuration which kinds of contacts are available. Please see Terms and definitions for a detailed explanation of the usage of persons and companies in ConSol CM.

There are two main actions related to contacts which can be carried out in cases:

• Adding contacts to the case
  You have to specify one main contact for the case. This is done when the case is created. You can then add any number of additional contacts. This action can only be done within the case.
• Working with contact data
  You can edit the data of the main contact and additional contacts assigned to the case and you can deactivate contacts within the case. These actions can either be done within the case or on the respective contact page. Please see Managing contacts for detailed information about these actions.

  Please bear in mind that all changes done to contact data are global changes, i.e., the new data will be automatically used in all places within ConSol CM (contact pages, other cases).

All actions involving contacts are carried out in the contacts section of the case.

Main contact

The main contact is the contact who gave the reason for creating the case. A case always has to have exactly one main contact. It depends on the customer group if you can add a person, a company, or a person or company as the main contact.

• One-level contact data models
  The data model contains either only persons or only companies. Therefore, you can either add a person or a company as the main contact.
• Two-level contact data models
  The data model contains both persons and companies. Depending on your system configuration, you can either add only a person, a company, or a person or a company as the main contact.

Specifying the main contact

When you create a new case, you can select an existing contact as the case's main contact or create a new contact for this purpose.

You can only create a new contact if you have the required permissions.

Figure 61: Contact section in a new case: Adding an existing contact during case creation

Please proceed as follows to create a new contact:

1. If more than one customer group is available, select the tab with the desired customer group.
2. Specify the company
   You can either select an existing company or create a new one:
   1. To select an existing company, start typing the company name and select the desired company from the suggestions provided by the Autocomplete Search.
   2. To create a new company, click the Create link above the entry field and fill in the provided data fields. Click Create and select to confirm your entry.

      If you work with a two-level contact model which allows adding a company as a contact, you can click the Select button to add this company as the main contact. In this case, you don't have to specify a person.

3. Specify the person
   You can either select an existing person or create a new one:
   1. To select an existing person, start typing into one of the data fields to see the suggestions provided by the Autocomplete Search. Please note that it depends on your system configuration which fields can be used for the Autocomplete Search. Click Select to confirm your entry and to add this person as the main contact.
   2. To create a new person, fill in the provided data fields. Click Create and select to confirm your entry and to add this person as the main contact.

If you work with a one-level contact model, you skip the second step.

Changing the main contact

You can change the main contact of an existing case by clicking the Change link in the context menu (little arrow icon next to the contact's name). The main contact is removed from the case and you can select a new one as described in Specifying the main contact.

Additional contacts

Additional contacts are contacts who are interested in the case. They are optional and usually have a role indicating the reason why they were added. You can add as many additional contacts as you want. It depends on the customer group if you can add a person, a company, or a person or company as an additional contact. The effects of adding an additional contact depend on the individual configuration of your CM system, e.g., additional contacts could for example receive a copy of the emails sent to the main contact.

Viewing the additional contacts

Click the There are more contacts link to display the additional contacts of a case.

Figure 62: Viewing additional contacts

Adding an additional contact

To add a new additional contact, click the Add link in the upper right corner of the contacts section. You can either select an existing contact or create a new one. Selecting and creating additional contacts works in the same way as selecting and creating main contacts, see Specifying the main contact.

Working with additional contacts

There are several actions which you can carry out for an additional contact. Depending on the type of action, they are either located in the context menu of the additional contact or in the context menu of the role.

Figure 63: Context menus of additional contacts

Removing an additional contact

To remove an additional contact, open the context menu by clicking the little arrow next to the contact's name and click Remove. Then, click Yes to confirm the removal of the additional contact. You cannot undo the removal once you confirmed it.

Setting an additional contact as main contact

To set an additional contact as main contact of the case, open the context menu by clicking the little arrow next to the contact's name and click Set as main contact. The additional contact becomes the new main contact and the previous main contact becomes an additional contact.

Indicating a role for an additional contact

The contact role states the purpose or reason for adding an additional contact to this particular case. This way, you can, for example, add the contact's project manager as an additional contact to the case and give him the corresponding role. Assigning a contact role to an additional contact is optional. The available contact roles and their effects depend on the individual configuration of your CM system.

To indicate a contact role, open the context menu of the role by clicking the little arrow next to the role and select the desired role. If the additional contact already has a role and you want to remove it, select No role.

Working with main and additional contacts

The following actions are available for both the main contact and additional contacts:

• Editing contact data
• Viewing the contact page

Editing contact data

You can edit the contact data of both the main contact and any additional contacts from within the case.

Editing contact data is a global change. It does not matter where you change the contact data (on the contact page, in the case), the data is always changed in the whole CM system, i.e., the changes are visible in every case the contact is added to and on the contact page.

To edit the data of the main contact or an additional contact, click the Edit link in the respective context menu. The background of the Contacts section turns yellow to indicate that it is in edit mode. Make the required changes and click Save changes. You can find detailed information about editing contact data in Editing contact data.

You can only edit contact data within cases if you have the permission to edit contacts of the respective customer group, and if your system is configured to allow editing contact data within cases.

Viewing the contact page

You can open the contact page of the main contact or an additional contact by opening the context menu of the contact and clicking the Jump to link. Depending on whether the contact is a person or a company, the link is either called Jump to person or Jump to company