Create or edit a contact

Can I do this task?

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Sales, and then click Contacts.
2. In the Records group, click New, or open the record that you want to edit.
3. In the General section, enter or edit information or observe any noted restrictions or requirements as needed:
   • First Name

     Enter a first name between 1 and 50 characters.You can use accent marks, in a customer's name or elsewhere, without affecting your ability to sort and find information.

   • Last Name

     Enter a name between 1 and 50 characters.

   • Parent Customer

     If this is a subcontact, specify its parent contact. To locate one, click the Lookup button .

     If this is a parent customer, leave this field blank.

   • E-mail

     E-mail addresses must be valid. For example, someone@example.com.

   • ZIP/Postal Code

     Enter 20 characters or fewer.

4. In the Details section, observe any noted restrictions or requirements and enter all the information you have available in the following fields:
   • Birthday

     You must use your organization's selected date format, such as 01/01/2006 or 31.12.2005.

   • Anniversary

     You must use your organization's selected date format, such as 01/01/2006 or 31.12.2005.

5. Under Information, click Notes and Activities. In the Notes section, click Add a new note, and add the information that applies to your record.
6. In the Preferences section, enter information or observe any noted restrictions or requirements as needed:
   • Owner

     By default this is set to be the creator of the record. Click the Lookup button to search for other records.

   • Credit Limit

     This field is not used as part of the business logic in Microsoft Dynamics CRM; however, your organization might use it as part of a workflow process.

   • Credit Hold

     This field is not used as part of the business logic in Microsoft Dynamics CRM; however, your organization might use it as part of a workflow process.

   • Payment Terms

     This field is mapped to any orders that are created for the record.

   • Price List

     If your organization has price lists Groups of the specific prices that can be charged for each unit in the unit groups of products. Price lists are used to determine the pricing in a quote for a customer. A default price list can be added to a product. set up, you can click the Lookup button to search for and select the appropriate price list. This field is mapped to any orders that are created for the record.

   • Contact Methods
     • Preferred

       Select how this person wants to be contacted.

     • E-mail

       Selecting Allow allows all e-mail, including e-mails related to campaign activities, to be sent. Selecting Do Not Allow will disallow any e-mail to be sent to this address.

     • Bulk E-mail

       Selecting Allow will allow any e-mail as part of a bulk e-mail process, including bulk e-mails related to campaign activities, to be sent. Selecting Do Not Allow will disallow any bulk e-mail to be sent to this address.

     • Phone, Mail

       Users can see this information, but Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not use it to control initiating or receiving communications.

     • Fax

       Users can see this information.

   • Marketing Information
     • Originating Lead

       If this contact is a converted lead, this field automatically shows the lead record. To enter an originating lead, locate one by clicking the Lookup button .

     • Send Marketing Materials

       If you select Send, marketing material corresponding to campaigns is sent to the respective addresses (e-mail, physical address) for the record. This includes general marketing mailers that might be sent on a regular basis that are not part of a targeted marketing campaign. If you select Do Not Send, marketing materials are not sent, nor can activities related to sending marketing materials be created for the record.

     • Last Date Included in Campaign

       Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically sets the date for this field when any marketing communication is sent to the addresses for the record. You can also manually update this field and enter a date. This field is used as filter criteria in Marketing Automation. For example, the Anti-Spam Setting area of a Campaign form uses the date in this field to make sure that you do not send frequent mailers to a customer.

   • Service Preferences

     Select the customer's preferred time and day for service activities.

     Click the Lookup button in the Preferred Service, Preferred Facility/Equipment, or Preferred User box to search for the appropriate record.

7. Click Save or Save and Close.

   Resolve potential duplicate records.

   When you publish a duplicate-detection rule A rule that specifies criteria for identifying a record as a duplicate., a matchcode A code that is created for every record that a duplicate-detection rule might apply to, used as part of the process of detecting duplicates. is created for every record in the matching record type for that rule. Publishing occurs in the background as a system job.

   1. To open a record to make sure it is a potential duplicate, in the Potential duplicate records list, double-click the record.
      • If the duplicate-detection rule A rule that specifies criteria for identifying a record as a duplicate. identified potential duplicate records in other record types, review records from each record type listed.
   2. If your new or updated record is not a duplicate, to create the new record, click Save Record.

      - OR -

      If your new or updated record is a duplicate, to cancel your changes, click Cancel.

   Note

   Duplicate detection can take place only if duplicate detection is enabled in Duplicate Detection Settings and if at least one duplicate-detection rule A rule that specifies criteria for identifying a record as a duplicate. exists for the record type.More information: Avoiding Duplicate Records

Note

You can associate multiple contacts with an account A company that might do business with your organization., but only one contact A person who represents a customer or potential customer, or an individual related to an account. For example, an individual who purchases products or services for their own use, or an employee of an account. A contact may also be a person involved in a business transaction, such as a supplier or a colleague. can be the primary contact for an account. If you consolidate contacts and subcontacts, you can create relationships between them and use the reporting features to generate revenue reports for all the related contacts.