When you create a contact in InterAction, the contact is stored in a single folder called the contact’s source folder. You can add the contact to additional folders either during the creation process or later. When you add a contact to another folder, the contact is linked into that folder.
Most contacts should be sourced in one of the following public source folders:
- Firm Contacts - People
- Firm Contacts - Companies
If you choose to source a contact in a folder other than these folders, you can later promote the contact into one of the public source folders. For more information, see Promoting Contacts.
Access Rights and Creating Contacts
In order to create a new contact, you must have appropriate access rights to the folder that will source the contact. Typically, every user has the appropriate rights to add a contact to the Firm Contacts - Companies and Firm Contacts - People folders. See the Configuring InterAction guide for detailed information about access rights.
Typically, all users can edit the global information for contacts sourced in the Firm Contacts - Companies or Firm Contacts - People folders.
How Should I Handle Trusts and Estates in InterAction?
In situations where you have to add trusts or estates to InterAction - for example, the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Smith - the best practice is to create “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” as a company contact and associate individual “Mr. Smith” and “Mrs. Smith” person contacts to this company contact. The advantage of this approach is that it is very easy to add activities to the person contacts and to the company contact at the same time. Also, if you store additional fields on company records, you can perform searches to find the people who have a company with Additional Field x. Additionally, if one of the contacts passes away, you can retain the detail (activities, additional fields, etc.) that existed with the couple as a contact while also keeping the other contact active.