Overview

A contact is a record for a person or an organisation that you would like to store for the current event/emergency or to retain for all current and future events. A contact can also be set to be a system user by Administrators. A contact record can also be linked to a Request, Information or Offer record, which makes data entry faster and more accurate if you keep your contacts up to date. Contacts are also accessible in the Crisisworks app, making the contacts register a great place to keep all of your key staff for access anywhere at any time.

Contacts can be accessed via the Operations menu and can be navigated to from the dashboard's contacts counter.

Contact

Types

There are three different contact types.

Each can be created using the New Contact option via the new item button menu found on the top RHS corner.

Open

From with the Contacts area, it will be the default action in the New item button menu. They can also be created from within a linked record like a request or information record.

They will be added to the current event by default, so you don't need to worry about adding made up names in a training event, as they will only be added to the training event (unless you choose to put them into a global works space for current and future use in other events)

Individual Contacts

Individual contact can be created directly via the new Contact form

Open

They are also created automatically when you specify "Add a new contact" within a Request, Information or Offer.

User Contacts

A User contact is created when the option Enable user account for this contact is ticked on the New Contact form.

Selecting the Enable user account for this contact option triggers an alert message indicating that the Contact record will be moved to a Global Event

Once accepted, the Event is automatically update to the default Global Event for User Account, Contacts Directory (Private) and additional form items related to a system user account are exposed

Organisation Contacts

An Organisation contact can be created directly via the new Contact form.

They are also created automatically when you specify "Add a new contact" within a Request, Information or Offer.

Fields of Note

Classification

The Classification field, found in the Workflow section allows you to classify a contact item using a defined set of terms.

The available terms can be defined within the system Lookups area (Administration -> Settings -> Lookups) using the lookup category Contact: Classification.

Deactivating Contact User

When updating the status of an existing contact who is also a user from active to inactive, the contact’s user settings are automatically disabled by deselecting the Enable user account for this contact option.

Communications Preferences

The SMS Communications and Email Communications fields allow the ability to choose which phone number (Primary Phone or Secondary Phone) and/or email address (Primary Email or Secondary Email) to use when communications are sent from the system. These settings are honoured when respective Receive communications by SMS and Receive communications by Email fields are selected.

Internal Notes

This field allows User Administrators to enter information that can only be seen by users who have users who have the ability to manage user data.

Using Global Events

Contacts that are also User Accounts must be stored in a global event. The system automatically filters the available events when a contact is also mark as a user.

There are two system generated global events that have been set up for contact management, Contacts Directory(Shared) and Contacts Directory(Private). Contacts Directory(Private) is set up as the default global event for this register. The intention of the Contacts Directory(Private) event is to provide a way to limit the access to Contact User records to those with User Administrator permissions. As seen in the below image, the default access to items in this event are limited to those who have the listed positions.

The Contacts Directory(Shared) (previously know as Global Contacts) event primary purpose it to store non user account contacts that need to be accessible irrespective of the current working event. We recommend storing your key emergency management and business continuity contacts in global workspaces.

Changing Event

You can save a new record or edit an existing contact into another event either by changing the selected event in the Event field, located within the Workflow section of the contact form or by performing a bulk action from the Contacts data grid via the Bulk Move button. You need to have the appropriate access to move contacts between events.

Bulk Actions

Numerous bulk actions are available from the Contact data grid when one or more contacts are selected.

Bulk Edit

The Bulk Edit form allows you to apply the following changes to all the selected contacts:

• Change the status

• Add/remove Classifications

• Activate/deactivate the user account associated with contact.

• Add/remove positions

• Add/remove tags

Bulk Move

Enables the bulk update of selected contacts from one event to another.

Bulk Create

The option allows you to bulk create expertise items which will then be linked to the selected contacts. This could be used for example, to add an expertise record for internal training undertaken by staff.

For more details about the expertise system see the Expertise section below.

Export to Report

Use to export the data from the selected contacts to Excel or csv file.

General information about report generation can be found here.

Merge

Allows you to merge 2 or more Contacts into one record. When merging two records, the original contact records will be closed and a new contact record will be created with the most recent data populated for each field.

Send Communication

Bulk communication messages can be sent to selected contacts.

Contacts can be used in conjunction with their expertise records to find people who are, for example, appropriately skilled or have a particular position and send a broadcast message asking whether they’re available to work in the event.

For a detailed guide on sending Bulk Communications see Relief Registrations | Sending Bulk Communications to Relief Registration Contacts

Manage Duties

Contacts who are users can be placed in bulk on duty in a specific event.

Send Welcome Email

A user welcome email can be sent to one or may users at anytime. This provides the use with a convenient link to reset their password and details of how to access the system.

Copy IDs

Provides a comma separated list of contact ids. This can be used for filtering on reports and CQL searches.

Finding Contacts

The Contacts data grid has a number a preset filters to help you navigate and manage contacts.

Advanced searching can be accessed by clicking the magnifying glass.

Some of the advanced search options are Positions, Expertise Category, Expertise Sub-Category, Classification and Status.

Once the search criteria have been added scroll down and select Apply to show you the filtered record set.

In the advanced search Search field, you can use notations like +smith +fred to find records that have "fred" AND also have "smith" in the same record or search for smi* to find any records that start with "smi" as the first three letters of any word like smith, smithers, smitten etc. We call this advanced notation CQL.

Importing contacts

Please see Importing Contacts & Users into Crisisworks for help with importing contacts.

Technical Reference

A Contact can be an external person or system user or organisation.

Contact schema

Non-schema fields

Workflow

Expertise Module

Overview

The main purpose of the Expertise register to save up-to-date details of specific skills, training and experience for Contacts.

This will provide the ability to easily identify staff with specific skills and experience as well as identify train individuals who may requiring training fill skill gaps in your organisation.

In addition, when an emergency hits, you will be able to easily find contacts with key skills, then communicate with them to confirm their availability for an event.

Adding an Expertise record

One or more Expertise records can be added to contacts with the Contact Type ‘individual’ set.

1. Click Add button to enter each expertise record for a contact.

2. For each expertise:

   1. Select the Category (required)

   2. Select the Sub-Category (required). That options available in this field are dependant on the Category selected.

   3. Enter Level of Proficiency, Completed Date, Expiry Date, Details and Documentation when relevant.

If the Category option Other is selected, a free text Sub Category (Other) options becomes available.

The Expiry Date field is a state transition field. This means that when a date set for this field is reached, the expertise item will transition to the workflow state EXPIRED.

Expertise Lookup

The following Expertise fields are populated using the Lookups system (Administration -> Settings -> Lookups).

Expertise Category

The Expertise Category field options are created by adding new Lookup items linked to the lookup category “Expertise Category”.

Ensure that the data set in the Value field is prefixed by expertise- this helps when setting up the expertise category link with the related sub categories.

The following are the base system generated Expertise Category look up options:

Expertise Sub Category

The Expertise Sub Category field options are created by adding new Lookup items linked to the lookup category “Expertise Sub Category”.

The following are the base system generated Expertise Sub Category look up data:

For Category Experience

For Category Qualification

Expertise Level of Proficiency

The Expertise Level of Proficiency field options can be created by adding new Lookup items linked to the lookup category “Expertise Category”.

The following are the base system generated Expertise Level of Proficiency look up options:

Finding Contacts with Expertise

There are a number of ways to search for contacts with particular expertise.

Filters

From the Contact data grid there are some convenient Expertise filters to utilise.

Expertise Category filters will show the total number of active contacts with at least one Expertise Category

Expertise filters show the contacts with at least one expertise item (Has Expertise), contacts with at least on expertise item that has an expiry date less than 30 days away (Expiring) and contacts with at least one expired expertise item (Expired).

Advanced Search

The Contact advanced search filters include options to search contacts based on Expertise Category, Sub Category and Proficiency Level.

Technical Reference

Expertise Schema

Default schema

Non-schema fields

Workflow