The directory is everyone your business deals with on one list: the people (called whatever your business calls them: Clients, Patients, Customers) and the companies, together or apart. Each row says where the record is in the pipeline and which parts of the app it is in, so a client booked at the front desk and a customer sold to in Sales are the same record, read the same way. It opens from the Apps menu as Directory, beside Clients.
A person is the same record Clients, Contacts and the register use. A company is one record too, whatever modules know it: the sales CRM, Wholesale and the 3PL each keep their own terms for it, and the directory shows them together.
The list
- All, your people, and Companies narrow the list, with how many of each. Companies are listed while the sales pipeline, wholesale or fulfillment for other businesses is on, for a login that has those sections.
- Search by name, email, phone or, for a person, a tag.
- The stage chips keep one stage: Lead (not converted yet; a person who has not booked or bought), Prospect (converted, or booked), Opportunity (an open opportunity), Customer (has bought: a paid sale or invoice, a completed visit, a won deal, a shipped wholesale or 3PL order) and, for a company, Not a fit. The stage is read from what happened, never typed: a refund or a void of the only purchase moves it back on its own.
- Any module keeps the records a part of the app knows: Booking (a visit or a sale), Wholesale (wholesale terms, or ordering for a company), 3PL (fulfillment terms), Store (an order online), CRM (a pipeline record, or someone at a company that has one) and Books (an invoice). Each row carries the same words as badges.
- Active or Archived shows one or the other.
- Beside the name: the company a person belongs to, or a company's primary person, and their email, phone and city. Where your edition's field pack is on (Fields & objects), the first of its fields are columns on each row; a health field shows its words only to a login with Read health records.
- The list shows fifty at a time; Show more reads the next fifty.
Opening a record
- A person opens their record under Clients, with everything on it.
- A company opens here: who it is, its stage and modules, its People (each opened under Clients), Where It Lives (its pipeline record under Sales, its wholesale terms under Products, its 3PL terms under Shipping, its invoices under the books' Customers, each opened in one tap) and its Company Fields.
Adding a person or a company
- Add a client takes a name with an email or a phone, through the same record Clients makes, and opens it.
- Add a company takes its name, kind, email, phone, website and city. As you type, Already Here? lists the companies here that it could be (the same email, website, phone or name in its city) with why; open one instead of making a second. Make a new company makes one, and refuses naming the twin when one joins by its email, website or business on BookNovi. Whoever may change companies in Sales, Wholesale or Shipping may add one.
The old lists
Clients, Contacts, the CRM's lists, Wholesale's accounts, the 3PL's clients and the books' Customers each keep working as they are, and each has See in the directory, which opens the directory narrowed to what that list shows.
Who sees what
A login sees in the directory exactly the people its client book shows it under Clients, and a company's person only within that book. Companies are listed only for a login whose sections list them today. The API reads the directory at GET /directory under clients:read, with companies under leads:read as well.
Best practices
- Look a person or a company up in the directory before adding one: the matcher shows what is here already, so one real company stays one record.
- Read the stage chips, not the old lists, to know where someone stands: lead, prospect, opportunity or customer is worked out from the facts every module keeps.
- Open a record where it lives (a person under Clients, a company's terms under Wholesale or the 3PL) and change it there once; the directory and every list read the same record.
- Keep a company's people on the company, with one primary contact, rather than typing the same name on each module's form.