Contacts

How to add, view, edit, and manage individual contacts in the CRM, including custom fields and contact tagging.

Last updated April 1, 2026 View as Markdown

Contacts are the core record in the CRM. Each contact represents an individual person — a donor, volunteer, member, or anyone your organization has a relationship with.

Contact List

The Contacts index shows all contacts in the system. You can search by name or email, filter by tag, and sort by any column. Use the New Contact button in the top right to add a contact manually.

Adding a Contact

When creating a contact, the following fields are available:

Name (required) — first and last name.
Email — primary email address. Must be unique if provided.
Phone — primary phone number.
Address — mailing address fields.
Household / Organization — optionally link this contact to a household or organization record.
Tags — apply one or more CRM tags to categorize the contact.
Custom fields — any custom fields defined under Tools → Custom Fields will appear here.

Editing a Contact

Click any contact row to open the detail view, then click Edit to modify the record. All fields are editable. Changes are saved immediately on submit.

Deleted Records and Trash

When you delete a contact, the record is soft-deleted — it is hidden from normal views but kept in the database so it can be restored if needed.

Viewing trashed records

Use the Trashed filter above the table to control which records appear:

Without trashed (default) — only active records are shown.
With trashed — active and deleted records are shown together. Deleted records can be identified by the Restore action in their row.
Only trashed — only deleted records are shown.

Restoring a deleted record

Find the record using the Trashed filter set to With trashed or Only trashed, then click Restore in the row actions. The record is immediately returned to active status.

Permanently deleting (purge)

Force-delete permanently removes a record from the database. This action is restricted to super-admin users and cannot be undone. Force-delete appears as an action on trashed records only when you are logged in as a super-admin.

Selecting existing tags — click the Tags field and type to search, or scroll the dropdown to browse available contact tags. Click a tag to apply it. Applied tags appear as pills.
Removing a tag — click the × on any pill to remove it.
Creating a new tag — type the label in the Create tag field below the selector and click the + button. The tag is created immediately and added to this contact.

Bulk Actions

From the contact list you can select multiple contacts to apply bulk actions such as adding tags or exporting selected records to CSV.

Source Field

Every contact has a Source field that records how the record entered the system:

Manual Entry — created directly through the admin interface
Import — brought in via the Importer tool
Web Form — submitted through a public registration or sign-up form
API — created programmatically via the API

The Source field is set automatically and cannot be changed by any user through the UI. It is displayed as read-only information on the contact edit form.

Reviewing Duplicate Contacts

Click Review Duplicates in the top-right of the contacts list to open the duplicate review tool. The system identifies probable duplicates using two criteria:

Exact match — two contacts share the same email address (case-insensitive). These are definite duplicates.
Probable match — two contacts share the same last name and postal code. These require human review.

For each pair you can choose one of three actions:

Merge — select which contact to keep (the older record is pre-selected). The surviving contact inherits any blank fields from the discarded record. All related data (notes, tags, donations, memberships, event registrations) is transferred to the surviving contact. The discarded contact is then removed.
Not a Duplicate — permanently dismiss the pair. It will not appear in future reviews.
Skip — pass over this pair for now. It will reappear the next time Review Duplicates is opened.

Importing Contacts

To bring in contacts from a spreadsheet, use Tools → Importer. See the Import Contacts help article for details.

Date of Birth and Minor Privacy Laws

The Date of Birth field is admin-entered and optional. If a contact's date of birth would make them younger than 13 years old, the field will not accept the date. This is a safeguard related to two laws that impose heightened privacy obligations on personal data collected from children under 13:

COPPA — Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (US federal) Applies when an operator has actual knowledge it holds personal information from a child under 13. Key obligations include: obtaining verifiable parental consent before collecting data, providing parents the right to review and delete their child's record, and not conditioning participation on collecting more information than is reasonably necessary. See the FTC's official COPPA page: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-coppa

CCPA / CPRA — California Consumer Privacy Act (California) Requires opt-in parental consent before selling or sharing personal information of consumers under 13, and opt-in consent from the consumer themselves for ages 13–16. See the California Attorney General's CCPA page: https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa

If you believe a contact in your system is under 13 and you have collected their personal information, consult legal counsel before taking further action. At minimum, the record should be treated with heightened care: avoid adding it to mailing lists, exporting it to third parties, or sharing it in any form without verifying you have appropriate consent or legal basis to do so.

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