# All My Contacts

This screen displays all of Contacts from every Contract Group that you have access to manage.
Contacts are much like any Address Book in other programs, and hold the basic contact information for any individual person. Contacts are organized into one of more Contact Groups.
Contacts also hold other properties that allow them to be integrated into other features of your website. Some Contacts are simply names and addresses that are stored online, while others are connected to mailing lists, Users, Members, and Affiliates. Based on the properties the Contact has, we identify them as a "Contact", "Subscriber", "Member", or an "Affiliate". Members and Affiliates will also have a User account that corresponds to their Contact.
IMPORTANT: When necessary, Contacts are automatically connected to Users, however not all Users have a contact. The User account holds the login information and access rights, while the Contact holds the individuals basic contact information for the User, along with the Membership status, and Affiliate status.
Contacts share information with their corresponding User account, and with the built-in interactive Pages like the My Account Pages, Custom Form Pages, E-mail Campaigns, and Checkout processes. These updates happen automatically by the system. For example, when a User logs in and views their My Account Page, and change their e-mail address, their User Account and their Contact are both updated with the new e-mail address.

You can move and organize Contacts into one or more Contact Groups. The built-in registration processes can place a Contact in a Contact Group, as can Custom Forms, and when completing an Order, and event when ordering a specific Product.

## Filtering & Viewing Contacts

Contact screens allow you to displays any of the Contacts that you have access to. Filters allow you to narrow your view of the Contacts. The Opt-In number at the top of the view indicates how many Contacts in the view are also Subscribers.

The Date Range filter allows you to narrow your view of Contact to a specific date range when the Contacts were last modified (or created).

The Keyword Search filter allows you to search for a specific keyword throughout all the Contacts in the current view. Press "Clear" to remove the Keyword Search.

The Contact Group filter allows you to narrow your view to only a particular Contact Group. Select the Contact Group and click "Update".

TIP: Next to the Contact Group is a numeric value that indicates how many Contacts are in that Group.

The Advanced Filters will allow you to further limit the Contacts that appear in the view. Clicking "Remove Advanced Filters" will clear the Advanced Filters for the view.
TIP: To reset all the filters and display all the Contacts you have access to, click "Remove Advanced Filters" if you have Advanced Filters showing, then press "Clear" to remove any Keyword Search, and finally select the "[All]" Contact Group, and click "Update".
You can show and hide the Contact Groups for Contacts by clicking on the "Show/Hide Contact Groups" link.

## Creating Contacts

Contacts can be created through the Control Panel by any Contact Manager one at a time, or they can be created automatically by the system when a Visitor registers as a Guest or Member.
To add a Contact manually, click on "Create Contact" to create a new Contact. If you need to add many Contacts at one time, you can click "Import Contacts".

To create a Contact automatically:

- Have your Visitors register on the website (submit the Registration Entrance Page).
- Have your unregistered Members register on the website (submit the Membership Entrance Page).
- Have your Visitor submit the Contact Form widget.
- Have your Visitor submit a Custom Form Page that has an e-mail address field defined.

To understand how Contacts gets created automatically, let's walk through an example. In this example, a Visitor enters your website. They decide to register as a Guest to access some Guest Access Pages and Files. When they register, a Contact is created and linked to their User account (which is also created during registration). Their Contact will also be added to the Registered Guest Contact Group (so that they might receive your next e-mail campaign e-newsletter, for instance).

## Importing Contacts

Contacts contain be imported and assigned to a Contact Group from a spreadsheet (CSV file).
You can also import Contacts for Unregistered Guests but they will still need to submit a Registration Entrance Page so that a User account can be created and they can become a Registered User and login.
You can also import Contacts for Unregistered Members (by including a Member ID field) but they will still need to submit a Membership Entrance Page so that a User account can be created and they can become a Registered Member and login.
You can also import Contacts for Unregistered Affiliates but they will still need to submit an Affiliate Sign Up Form Page so that a User account can be created. Once the approval process is complete, they will become a Registered Affiliate.
TIP: All the fields found in the Microsoft Outlook Address Book are available so you can easily import directly from and Outlook Address Book export file.
Click on "Import Contacts" to import your Contacts.

## E-mailing Contacts

You can e-mail any Contact that has a valid e-mail address and has "Opt-in" status for their Contact, and any Contact Groups that they have subscribed too. To e-mail Contacts, you will need to be a Campaign Manager, and you can click on the [CAMPAIGN] tab to begin the process.

## Updating Contacts

To update a Contact manually through the Control Panel, click on the Contact you wish to update.
You can also select several Contacts and set their "Opt-in" or "Opt-out" status which will affect whether they will receive any e-mail Campaigns.
NOTE: Even Contacts without User accounts can follow the "update my e-mail preferences" link in any e-mail message they receive from a Campaign and update their own e-mail address, opt-in status, and subscriptions. (However, they will not have access to any other My Account Pages until they register.)
To understand how Contacts get updated automatically, let's walk through an example. In this example, a Registered Guest (Contact has been created and linked to their User account).

- Now if the newly Registered User (our Guest) goes to their My Account Page, and changes their e-mail address and adds their contact information, this will update their e-mail address in their Contact and their User account automatically.
- Now the Guest finds a Custom Form to submit. Any fields marked "Connect to Contact" will be pre-filled with their Contact information. If they change any of the connected fields, their Contact will be updated when they submit the Custom Form. These updates will be reflected the next time they visit their My Account Pages.
- If the Custom Form Page also defined a Contact Group, their Contact will be added to the Contact Group automatically simply because they submitted the particular Custom Form Page.
- Now let's say the Guest decides to make a payment, or order something from the website. When they checkout, their billing information will be pre-filled from their Contact, which again, has their latest information. Upon completing their Order, they will again be added to another mailing lists defined by the Products ordered, and any address updates during the checkout process will be reflected in their Contact/User information. If multi-recipient shipping is enabled, all of their shipping addresses will also be added to their My Account Address Book and available to be recalled when they return again to shop.
- If the Guest goes to their E-Mail Preferences Page and adds or removes themselves from any e-mail subscriptions (mailing lists) their Contact Groups and Opt-in Status are updated in their Contact.

This is only one example of the many ways in which you can automatically updates Contacts. The good news is that you don't have to do any of this "web plumbing" yourself. the system handles all the data management for you - you just add Pages and link them together.

## Organizing Contacts

Select the Contact you wish to add or remove from a Contact Group and select "Organize Contacts". This feature is only accessible when you have clicked "Show Groups" in the Contact screen heading.

## Exporting Contacts

You can easily export any or all Contacts to your local computer that can be opened with a spreadsheet or word processing program.
Filter the Contacts view until you have all the Contacts you want to export, and click on "Export Contacts" to create a download text file (CSV file).

## Deleting Contacts

Filter the Contacts view until you have all the Contacts you want to delete, and click on "Delete Contacts".
WARNING: When you Delete Contacts, all Contacts in the currently filtered view are deleted (even though you can only see the first screen of Contacts that will be deleted).
WARNING: Take care when deleting Contacts, there is no undo. Once you confirm the deletion, the Contact data is gone!
TIP: You might want to export the Contacts to create a backup copy of the data before you delete.