Contact persons in Sapera are people who are linked to a specific customer and act as a point of contact with the company. The purpose is to gather all relevant information about the people who handle the dialogue, decisions or orders on behalf of the customer in one place.
A contact person can be anything from a purchasing manager or accounting employee to a sales manager or technician. When contact persons are created correctly, it is easy to find the right information for communication, sending invoices, SMS messages and order confirmations.
A customer can have one or more contact persons, and communication methods, titles and functions can be linked to each contact person.
Contact persons are found in Financial under Actor library. Navigation path: Financial → Actor library → Contact persons.
If you cannot see the menu item, you probably do not have permission for it. Contact support.
When you open Contact persons, a list of all contact persons in the system is displayed. By default, the list only shows active contact persons.
The list contains the following columns. Columns marked as hidden are not shown by default but can be enabled via column selection.
Id: The system's internal id for the contact person. Hidden by default.
Name: The contact person's identification value based on the layout configuration, typically first and last name.
State: Shows whether the contact person is Active, Archived or Deleted.
Activated: Shows whether the contact person is Activated or Deactivated. The column is only visible if activation is configured for the role.
Created by: The user who created the contact person. Hidden by default.
Created on: Date of creation. Hidden by default.
Updated by: The user who last edited the contact person. Hidden by default.
Updated on: Date of last edit. Hidden by default.
Depending on the configuration, additional columns based on layout fields and custom fields (EAV) may appear in the list.
In the top right of the toolbar there is a search field. Enter a search term to filter the list across the contact persons' identification fields. See How to search in lists for more about searching and filtering.
The State and Activated columns have column filters that allow you to narrow the list to specific values. Click the filter icon in the column header to open the filter. By default, the State filter has "Active" selected. By default, the Activated filter has "Activated" and "Not supported" selected.
Certain layout-based columns support additional filtering, for example by first name, last name, address, phone and email.
Click the refresh button in the toolbar to reload the list with current data.
Click the "+" button in the top right of the toolbar to create a new contact person. If creating contact persons with multiple roles is configured, a dropdown menu opens where you select which role the new contact person should be created with.
The edit card opens, and you can fill in the relevant fields. Finish with "Save and close" to save and return to the list. Use "Save and continue" to save and remain in the edit card, for example to link related actors immediately after creation.
Select a contact person in the list and click the edit button (pencil icon) in the toolbar, or double-click the row, to open the edit card.
Archived contact persons cannot be edited. Deactivated contact persons cannot be edited either; instead, the system displays a warning that the actor is deactivated at the current division level.
If a contact person is deactivated at the current division level, a warning panel appears at the top of the edit card with the message "Customer is deactivated on current org. unit". Save buttons are not available in this state.
The edit card is divided into layout groups and tabs. The content of the upper part of the edit card (fields in layout groups) depends on the layout configuration for the contact person role. Below are the tabs that may appear at the bottom of the edit card.
Depending on the configuration, one or more tabs are shown at the bottom of the edit card with related actors, for example a "Customer" tab that shows linked customers. These tabs make it possible to create and manage relationships to other actors directly from the contact person card.
The "Actor info" tab shows read-only metadata about the contact person.
Id: The system's internal id for the contact person.
Created by: Username of the user who created the record.
Created on: Date and time of creation.
Updated by: Username of the user who last edited the record.
Updated on: Date and time of the last edit.
The fields in the edit card depend on the layout configuration for the contact person role. The following fields are the typically available fields. Fields marked as "if configured" are only shown if they are enabled in the configuration.
First name: The contact person's first name. Normally a required field.
Last name: The contact person's last name. Normally a required field.
Middle name: The contact person's middle name. Only shown if configured.
Date of birth: The contact person's date of birth. Only shown if configured.
Initials: The contact person's initials. Only shown if configured.
Salutation: Salutation used in communication (e.g. Mr., Mrs.). Only shown if configured.
Last name prefix: Prefix to the last name (e.g. von, de). Only shown if configured.
Position: The contact person's position in the company. Only shown if configured.
Title: Formal title (e.g. Dr., Director). Only shown if configured.
Addresses: One or more address cards with address line, postal code, city and country. Each address card has a type dropdown with the options Company, Contact, Home, Delivery and Other. Click "Edit" to edit an address, "Delete" to remove it, and "Clear" to reset the field.
Phones: One or more phone numbers. Each phone number has a type dropdown with the options SMS (mobile), Office, Home and Fax. Phone numbers are validated against a valid format.
Emails: One or more email addresses. Each email address has a type dropdown, for example Invoice. Depending on the configuration, certain email types may be required.
Websites: One or more web addresses. Each web address has a type dropdown with the options Primary and Secondary.
Groups/Membership: Membership in groups in the actor library. Only shown if configured. Click the field to open a dialog where you search and select groups.
Related actors: Link to related actors, for example which customer the contact person is linked to. Can be a single field for selecting one actor, or a field that allows selecting multiple actors. Click the search button to open the actor selection dialog.
Avatar/Image: Image or avatar for the contact person. Only shown if configured.
User account: Link to a user account in Sapera. Only shown if configured.
Custom fields: Depending on the configuration, additional fields specific to the role in question may be shown (EAV fields). These fields can have different types (text, number, date, list, etc.).
Select a contact person in the list to activate the action buttons in the toolbar.
Edit: Opens the edit card for the selected contact person. The button is disabled if the selected contact person is archived.
Delete: Permanently deletes the selected contact person. The system checks whether the contact person is in use before deletion. If the contact person cannot be deleted because it is used elsewhere, an error message is shown with a list of the usages. If there are warning-based usages (which do not prevent deletion), these are shown in the confirmation dialog. Deletion is irreversible, unless an administrator undoes the deletion via the More menu.
Change log: Shows a history of all changes made to the selected contact person. The button (clock icon) is active when a contact person is selected.
Export as report: Exports the current list as a report. The button is visible when there are no selected rows and a report template is available for the role.
Check one or more rows in the list using the checkbox in the first column. Use the "Select all" button in the left part of the toolbar to select all rows in the list at once. Use the same button again to deselect all.
When there are selected rows, the bulk operations below are activated in the left part of the toolbar. All bulk operations show a confirmation dialog with the number of affected contact persons before the action is performed.
Archive: Archives all selected contact persons. Archived contact persons cannot be edited but can be removed from the archive again.
Unarchive: Removes the archiving from all selected contact persons and restores them to Active state.
Activate: Activates all selected deactivated contact persons. Only shown if activation is configured for the role.
Activate with consent: Activates all selected contact persons and records that consent has been received. Only shown if activation is configured for the role.
Deactivate: Deactivates all selected active contact persons. Only shown if activation is configured for the role.
Export of selected as report: When rows are selected and a report template is available, the selected contact persons can be exported as a report. A maximum of 1,000 contact persons can be exported at a time.
The More menu (three dots) contains additional actions that are not always relevant.
Undo deletion: Restores a deleted contact person. This function is only available to administrators. The contact person must be marked as Deleted in the list (requires that Deleted is enabled in the State filter).
The setup dialog for Contact persons makes it possible to configure which division level (org. unit) is active for contact persons in the current session.
The dialog is accessed via the settings button in the edit card for a contact person. Here you select the relevant division level from a dropdown list of available levels.
The setup is saved by clicking "Apply". The change affects which data set is displayed and edited in the contact persons screen.
If you have questions, you are welcome to contact support.
Want to know more?
Read more in these related articles:
Org. units
Learn to navigate the list screen for organizational units in Financial: create, edit and delete records, use bulk actions like Archive and Set as default, and fill in all key fields correctly.
