Managing Contact Fields

You can see a list of all the fields (or columns) that have been specifies in the Contacts Table by pressing Manage Contact Fields in the Contacts section of the Etelligent navigation. After taking this option you will see a page that looks something like this:

Those fields with a 'normal' (i.e. not bold) typeface are Required Contact Fields. These have a special meaning defined by Etelligent and they cannot be changed or deleted.

Those fields with names in bold type and underlined can be deleted if you want. Click on the field name and you will be asked to confirm deletion. If you delete a field all data in that column of the database will be lost.

At the bottom of the list of existing fields there is a button that allows you to add a new field. After pressing this button the following page will appear

You are being asked to name the field, and to specify a field data type.

Take care when naming the field. You should choose a name that is:

• Descriptive of the data that will be stored and is unambiguous
• Does not contain spaces and follows standard database naming conventions
• Is not too long

Available field types are shown in the dropdown list. Note that the numbers 255, 500 and 4000 beside the type Text refer to the maximum number of characters allowed in this field. These are the available options together with an example of what type of data they would be suitable to store

• Text 255 - Eg Contact's phone number or a reference
• Text 500 - Eg Full multi-line address
• Text 4000 - Eg List of interests (e.g. from multi-select tick box type form), or Notes
• Number - Eg Number of employees (if a banding code was not being used)
• Currency - Eg Value of last year's purchases
• Date - Eg Birthday or Subscription renewal date
• Tick Box (or Boolean) - Eg Does this person have a maintenance contract?

It is advisable to give careful consideration to the addition of new fields into the database. Think before you add. There are very often valid alternate strategies that can be used in recording information about your contacts.

Think in particlar about:

• How the data will be collected
• The ease with which it can be extracted from other applications for importation into Etelligent
• Will it be easy to use the data fields in a Filter?

Contact Quality Analysis

If you have requested that the optional Contact Quality Analysis is activated on your account then we will have added some special fields into the Contacts Database.

Related Topics

Contacts Database | Filters | Surveys | Importing Boolean Data | Contact Quality Analysis