Hide Inactive Contacts
Instead of deleting a Contact from the database outright, the user should be able to flag a Contact as "hidden". This allows the Contact's historical information to be retained without cluttering the active Contact list. A "Show Hidden Contacts" checkbox could be added similar to the "Show Hidden Fields" checkbox has been added to the UDF tab.
You can create a custom field (UDF) and then set it to True or False. Then using Advanced Search you can filter whether to show entries based on this custom field (UDF).
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Tim commented
This is a regular situation as contacts move on. Ideally we would be able to mark them as inactive then Hide or View them. I have customers with 50 inactive contacts (we add xx to end of surname to identify) and have to scroll through them each time to get to the active contact we need.
This would be a great addition. -
Cathy commented
You could create a dummy company called something like "Old Contacts" company and add the old contacts to that. Then create a security group with limited access to those who need to retrieve this information for those "graveyard" contacts.
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Dan L'Abbe commented
I'm a new user to Maximizer but I have a different concept to solve this problem that I believe makes more sense. It is similar to Tim's concept. If someone leaves a company / household, users still want to see all correspondences, notes, etc but there needs to be a way to mark them as no longer working for the company. I believe the system needs a active / inactive radio button. I also would add that all notes, messages etc should be marked slightly different like italicized so there is an indication that they are gone. Another approach is to show the person's name with a strike through.
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Steve Bromschwig commented
The downside is that this request was to implement a feature which would allow a user to "declutter" the Contact tab. If a Contact is no longer at the Company record, we typically do not want to delete the Contact from the database because doing so would impact historical data. So, the request was to allow these inactive Contacts to be hidden so they do not clutter up the list. There are many instance where a single Company can have hundreds of Contacts which have been entered in over the years. Over time, the sheer number of Contacts becomes overwhelming.
While a UDF could be used to track the Active / Inactive status of any given Contact, it doesn't do anything to "declutter" the grid as was the original request. Yes, you can include that UDF in the Column Setup and yes you can sort your Contact tab based on that UDF - but then that still leaves your list with potentially lots of irrelevant people which are preserved for historical purposes only.
Besides, I might want to sort my Contact tab based on some other field (Title, Department, Email, some other custom UDF), so adding *another* UDF to the equation is not the preferred approach.
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What are the downsides to handling this through a UDF which tracks the contacts status at a company?
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Tim commented
Upon reflection we just need a Hide/Unhide option and have the 'deleted' records greyed out when Un-hidden.
If they are deleted as Paul says their notes get dumped under the company name which means they are un-attributed so largely useless. Also they don't show up in a search, nor in the Duplicate alert. I can hardly think of a situation where I would want to remove them completely. -
Jin Yu commented
We have been discussing the recycle bin idea which is similar to this suggestion. The idea is that when a contact is deleted, set the full access and read access rights to a special user (e.g. the administrator). The contact won't be visible to other users. The administrator can delete the contact permanently.
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Tim commented
This Suggestion has had significant support, any news on it being added? Tim
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Mike Caliguri commented
This would be very handy when contacts leave a company and you do not want to delete them, so it's easier to understand where they may have worked in the past if they are now a new contact at a new company. Understanding previous relationships helps when possibly selling to the same person again.
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Mike Caliguri commented
I requested the same functionality as part of the request to have "Hidden Contacts"
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Mike Caliguri commented
Related to this is when a contact leaves a company, there should be a way to tag or flag it as not a current employee, which could also make it hidden. We like to retain that contact's employment trail since usually they will appear hired by another company that may turn into a prospect. I is good to understand the contacts employment trail and any history or events that happened through out the past
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Jon Arancio commented
If hiding the contacts proves difficult - due to the question of what to do with the notes or documents (while the contact may be gone, what they said and wrote persists with often greater relevance that the guys phone number etc.) perhaps we still allow deletion but have some automated log in the notes. Ideally I would want the following:
1. A single note indicated the contact name, position, maybe some othe info and the text 'deleted as of this date'.
2. In each note associated with this contact append "First" &" "& "Last"&": " names before the note so you can see where they came from, then roll up to the company as is now the case. Documents essenially do this automatically but notes get lost.
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Paul Battaini commented
There is also the issue of what to do with the Notes from these contacts. In one respect they are communications with the parent Company as well and should stay visible regardless of the Contact status. But History items like Campaigns to this Contact are of less value and should be Hidden. Should the default visiblity levels be configurable at a DB level by the Admin?
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Tim commented
I agree Steve, we were just discussing our frustration at the plethora of dead contacts under large company records.
Currently we add xx to the end of the name (at the front we could never search for the name).
This allows us to follow our contact from job to job but an inactive/hidden flag would be far better. And the sooner the better! -
Ian Wallace - CABC commented
Idealliy there should also be and "include hidden contacts" on all search forms. (defaults to Off)
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Don Small commented
Just to add to the business case for this, I believe the main reason for this is to review history for contacts that have left a company. It would be best to be able to filter by active, inactive or both.
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Dustin commented
This would give the ability to manage contacts that have left the account. And still keep communication that you have ad with that individual.