Contact: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:59, 28 March 2025

A contact is a representation of either an individual (natural person) or an entity (company, sole trader, court, etc) in ContactsLaw.

Whenever you need to draw upon information relating to a person or business; for example, when creating a matter or requesting a payment, you create a link to the relevant contact. This process reduces the need for duplicate data entry.

Contacts are created within a particular subscription and are shared across all businesses within that subscription. This allows all users within the subscription to benefit from the shared pool of contacts.

Types

At minimum, every contact is either an individual or an entity. You can designate further types for special behaviours:

Individuals

Judicial Officer - A judge, magistrate or other judicial officer that can be assigned role(s) on a matter.
Lawyer - A practising lawyer that can be assigned as the representative of a party on a matter.

Entities

Bank - A financial institution in which accounts may be held.
Court - A judicial body which determines the jurisdiction of a matter.
Law Firm - A law firm, practice or other entity that can be assigned as the representative of a party on a matter.
Trust - A trust or estate.

Note: Entities can also be used to describe abstract contacts, such as "persons unknown".

Properties

A contact may have the following properties:

Name(s), including historical names (e.g. maiden name, former business names, etc)
Gender
Date of birth/death
Occupation/industry group
Referral events
Communication entries (telephone, email address, etc)
Addresses and correspondence preferences
Notes
Related contacts, including details about the nature of each relationship
Financial entries (bank details, etc)
Tags

Names

Individuals

The components of an individual's name are stored separately, so that they can be formatted in different ways; e.g. for casual or formal greetings:

Title
First name
Middle name(s) separated by spaces
Last name

At minimum, you must specify either a first name or a last name for all individual contacts.

In many cases, an individual's first name can be used to predict their gender. You can improve the accuracy of these predictions by creating more individual contacts.

You can add historical records of former names, such as an individual's maiden name, which will be used during the period in which they are in effect. You can also mark such entries as aliases, in which case they will appear separately and can be in effect indefinitely.

Entities

Entity contacts are often known by many names. You can specify the following:

Trading name - The name under which a business trades, or is most commonly known. You must provide the trading name for all entity contacts.
Registered name - If different to the above, the registered entity name; i.e. as it appears in government registers or for legal purposes.
Abbreviation - Used only in situations where brevity is important, such as when building descriptions for documents and time records.
Other name(s)

Although not considered part of an entity's name, the Australian Business Number (ABN) and/or Australian Company Number (ACN) can also be used to identify an entity contact. Historical records of these numbers can also be stored.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-A <strong>contact</strong> is a representation of either an individual (natural person) or an entity (company, sole trader, court, etc) in [[ContactsLaw]].
+[[File:Web-Artwork-ManSittingWithLaptop.png|right|frameless]]A <strong>contact</strong> is a representation of either an individual (natural person) or an entity (company, sole trader, court, etc) in [[ContactsLaw]].
-Whenever you need to draw upon information relating to a person or business; for example, when creating a [[matter]] or requesting a [[transaction|payment]], you create a link back to the contact. Changes made on the contact will propagate through to all linked items automatically. This allows for maximum re-use of information.
+Whenever you need to draw upon information relating to a person or business; for example, when creating a [[matter]] or requesting a [[transaction|payment]], you create a link to the relevant contact. This process reduces the need for duplicate data entry.
-Contacts are created within a particular [[subscription]] and are shared across all [[business|businesses]].
+Contacts are created within a particular [[subscription]] and are shared across all [[business|businesses]] within that subscription. This allows all users within the subscription to benefit from the shared pool of contacts.
-== Contact Types ==
+==Types==
-At minimum, every contact is either an individual or an entity. You can add additional contact types to imbue special behaviour:
+At minimum, every contact is either an '''individual''' or an '''entity'''. You can designate further types for special behaviours:
-=== Individuals ===
+===Individuals===
-* <strong>Judicial Officer</strong> - A judge, magistrate or other judicial officer that can be assigned role(s) on a matter.
+*<strong>Judicial Officer</strong> - A judge, magistrate or other judicial officer that can be assigned role(s) on a matter.
-* <strong>Lawyer</strong> - A practising lawyer that can be assigned as the representative of a [[Matter:Party|party]] on a matter.
+*<strong>Lawyer</strong> - A practising lawyer that can be assigned as the representative of a [[party]] on a matter.
-=== Entities ===
+===Entities===
-* <strong>Bank</strong> - A financial institution in which [[Account|accounts]] may be held.
+*<strong>Bank</strong> - A financial institution in which [[Account|accounts]] may be held.
-* <strong>Court</strong> - A judicial body which determines the jurisdiction of a matter.
+*<strong>Court</strong> - A judicial body which determines the jurisdiction of a matter.
-* <strong>Law Firm</strong> - A law firm, practice or other entity that can be assigned as the representative of a party on a matter.
+*<strong>Law Firm</strong> - A law firm, practice or other entity that can be assigned as the representative of a party on a matter.
-* <strong>Trust</strong> - A trust or estate.
+*<strong>Trust</strong> - A trust or estate.
+Note: Entities can also be used to describe abstract contacts, such as "persons unknown".
-== Properties ==
+==Properties==
 A contact may have the following properties:
-* Name(s), including historical names (e.g. maiden name, former business names, etc)
+*'''Name(s)''', including historical names (e.g. maiden name, former business names, etc)
-* Gender
+*'''Gender'''
-* Date of birth/death
+*'''Date of birth'''/'''death'''
-* Occupation/industry group
+*'''Occupation'''/'''industry''' group
-* [[Contacts:Referral|Referral events]]
+*[[Referral Event|'''Referral events''']]
-* [[Contacts:Communication|Communication entries]] (telephone, email address, etc)
+*[[Communication|'''Communication entries''']] (telephone, email address, etc)
-* [[Contacts:Address|Addresses]] and correspondence preferences
+*[[Address|'''Addresses''']] and correspondence preferences
-* [[Notes]]
+*'''[[Notes]]'''
-* Related contacts, including details about the nature of each relationship
+*'''Related contacts''', including details about the nature of each relationship
-* Financial details (bank details, etc)
+*'''[[Contact:Financial Entry|Financial entries]]''' (bank details, etc)
-* [[Tag|Tags]]
+*[[Tag|'''Tags''']]
-= Roles =
+== Names ==
-Role is a term used throughout ContactsLaw to refer to the way in which contacts are utilised. For example, a contact may appear as the author of a document, or as the plaintiff on a litigation file.
+=== Individuals ===
+The components of an individual's name are stored separately, so that they can be formatted in different ways; e.g. for casual or formal greetings:
-Generally, roles have unique names and are shared across various parts of the system. A role may be defined at global scope, or may be limited to one or more workgroup(s).
+* '''Title'''
+* '''First name'''
+* '''Middle name(s)''' separated by spaces
+* '''Last name'''
+At minimum, you must specify either a first name or a last name for all individual contacts.
-User-created content such as files or documents may subscribe to a set of roles. In this way, contacts can not only be associated with these records, but the nature of the association can also be recorded.
+In many cases, an individual's first name can be used to predict their gender. You can improve the accuracy of these predictions by creating more individual contacts.
+You can add historical records of former names, such as an individual's maiden name, which will be used during the period in which they are in effect. You can also mark such entries as aliases, in which case they will appear separately and can be in effect indefinitely.
-Roles play a significant part in document building. Since contacts are assigned roles, document templates can contain fields which point to particular roles. When a document is built from the template, the contacts belonging to these roles feed the information inserted into those fields. (For example, defining an 'executor' role in the 'wills' workgroup makes it possible to create documents where the executor contact's names, addresses and telephone numbers are automatically filled-in.)
+=== Entities ===
+Entity contacts are often known by many names. You can specify the following:
-= Controlled roles =
-If defined, certain roles will be treated specially by ContactsLaw. These are termed controlled roles. The following types of controlled roles can be created:
-* '''For documents'''
-** '''From''' - E-mails, faxes and other forms of correspondence will identify this role as the author/sender. When you create a letter, fax or e-mail, ContactsLaw will populate this role with the member's contact.
-** '''To''' - E-mails, faxes and other forms of correspondence will identify this role as the addressee/recipient. When you register e-mails or faxes, ContactsLaw will look up contacts that match the recipient's e-mail address or fax number. When you create a letter, fax or e-mail, ContactsLaw will populate this role with the contact supplied to the activity.
-** '''CC''' - As above, using the carbon copy receipients from an e-mail. You can add carbon copy contacts to a file's distribution list.
-** '''BCC''' - As above, using the blind carbon copy recipients from an e-mail. Applies to outgoing e-mails only.
-* '''For workgroups'''
-** '''Document manager''' - Models an additional member on a file who is responsible for the daily management of documents relating to the matter. You can delegate tasks and filter a number of reports according to the document manager. In the absence of a document manager, the file manager will be used.
-** '''Responsible partner''' - Models an additional member on a file who is ultimately responsible for the matter. This may differ from the file supervisor in situations where the supervisor is not a partner/director of the firm. You can delegate tasks and filter a number of reports according to the responsible partner. In the absence of a responsible partner, the file supervisor will be used.
-= Availability of roles =
-The availability of a particular role depends on a range of factors:
-{| class="wikitable"
-|
-|'''Workgroup'''
-|'''Global'''
-|-
-|'''File'''
-|✓
-Roles from the file's workgroup only.
+* '''Trading name''' - The name under which a business trades, or is most commonly known. You must provide the trading name for all entity contacts.
-|✗
+* '''Registered name''' - If different to the above, the registered entity name; i.e. as it appears in government registers or for legal purposes.
-|-
+* '''Abbreviation''' - Used only in situations where brevity is important, such as when building descriptions for [[Document|documents]] and [[Time Record|time records]].
-|'''Document type'''
+* '''Other name(s)'''
-|✓
-If the document type's workgroup contains the role.
+Although not considered part of an entity's name, the ''Australian Business Number'' (ABN) and/or ''Australian Company Number'' (ACN) can also be used to identify an entity contact. Historical records of these numbers can also be stored.
-|✓
-|-
-|'''Document template'''
-|✓
-If the template's workgroup contains the role.
-|✗
-|}
-When you rename or merge roles, ContactsLaw will automatically update any references to the role in document types, templates, workgroups and files.
 [[Category:Contacts]]
 [[Category:Key Terms]]