Contacts Pro

Contacts Pro replaces the built-in Contacts screen with a fuller one. It works on the same contacts, so nothing moves and nothing is lost if you switch it off.

What it does

Contacts Pro takes over the Contacts entry in the sidebar. Everything the built-in screen does is still there: search, starred contacts, groups, addresses, extra emails and phones, billing details, duplicate, bulk select and delete, import and export.

On top of that it adds:

• Custom fields - your own fields on every contact, such as a membership number or a renewal date.
• Birthdays - a date of birth on each contact, their age when the year is known, the birthdays coming up, and a count on the sidebar entry.
• Group looks - an emblem and a colour for each group, shown wherever the group appears.
• A quicker list - sort by any column, filter by a field, and edit some values in place.
• Sharing - share a contact, several, or a whole group with other people, to view or to edit.
• Birthdays on the Calendar - if the Calendar plugin is installed, your contacts' birthdays show there as a "Birthdays" layer.
• A notification on the day of a contact's birthday.
• Import from Google, a phone or Outlook - bring contacts in from a vCard or CSV file, with a preview that spots the ones you already have. Export to vCard too.
• Call now - Call Sam now… on a contact's menu starts a video call on your own site straight away, and the contact shows your recent calls with them.

Your contacts are private to you. Other users do not see them unless you share them. Groups are different: every user of Contacts sees the same list of groups.

Getting started

1. Make sure the built-in Contacts Tool is switched on. Contacts Pro needs it and will not run without it.
2. Open Contacts from the sidebar.
3. Click New contact to add someone, or use ⋮ > Import contacts… to bring them in from Google, a phone, Outlook or a spreadsheet.
4. To add your own fields, open ⋮ > Custom fields… and click Add a field.
5. To add a birthday, open a contact and fill in the Birthday row. Day and month are enough.
6. To style a group, right-click its chip above the list and pick Style….

Screens

The contacts list

The bar at the top has the search box, New contact and the ⋮ menu. Below it is a row of chips: All, ★ Starred, 🎂 Birthdays, ⇄ Shared with me (only when someone has shared with you) and one chip per group. Each chip shows how many contacts it holds. Click one to show only those.

• Search matches names, emails, phones, companies, notes, groups and your custom fields.
• Sort by clicking a column heading. Click it again to reverse. Birthday sorts by the next birthday.
• Filter with + Filter. Pick a Choice or Yes / no field, then a value. The filter shows as a chip such as "Tier: Gold ×"; click the × to remove it.
• Edit in place by double-clicking a company, email, phone or custom value. Enter saves, Esc cancels. Double-clicking a Yes / no value flips it.
• Right-click a contact (or click its ⋮) to edit, email, call, copy an email or phone, star, file it in a group, duplicate, select, share or delete it.
• Select several contacts with their tick boxes. A bar appears with Add to group ▾, Share…, Delete and Clear.

Keyboard: / jumps to search, the down arrow moves into the list, up and down arrows move between rows, Enter opens a contact, Space selects it, Delete deletes it and N starts a new contact.

The contact editor

Click a row to open the editor. Along the top are quick actions, each shown only when the contact has what it needs:

• Email now - writes to them, in Email Pro's compose window when you have a mailbox there, otherwise in your mail program.
• Call - rings their main phone (on a phone, or a computer set up for calls).
• Chat now - starts a video call on your site. The call opens for you in a new tab, and the editor shows their link to the call: Copy it to paste anywhere, or Email it to them. They open it in their browser, knock, and you let them in. Join takes you back into the call.
• View website - opens their website in a new tab.

The editor also holds the built-in details plus:

• Birthday - day, month and an optional year. With the year, the editor shows their age and when they next turn a year older.
• Your custom fields - each with the right kind of input. What you type is checked as you go; for example a date must be a real date and a link must be a web address.

Use ‹ › at the top of the editor, or Alt+Up and Alt+Down, to step through the list as it is shown. Your changes are saved before it moves on. Ctrl+Enter saves.

If another plugin adds things to a contact (for example Calendar events, or your emails with them in Email), they show in the editor too.

Fields switched off in Contacts settings › Fields are left out of the editor, and a section with nothing left in it is left out too. Show N hidden fields at the bottom shows them for this contact; it says how many of them hold something.

Birthdays coming up

When any birthdays fall within the look-ahead period, a strip above the list shows them, soonest first. Click one to open that contact. Show as a list switches to the 🎂 Birthdays chip.

The Contacts entry in the sidebar shows a count of birthdays in the next 7 days.

When a birthday is within 7 days and the contact has an email address, their menu offers Send birthday wishes, which opens a new email in your mail program.

Custom fields

Open ⋮ > Custom fields…. Click Add a field to make one. From here you can also edit, reorder (with the up and down arrows) and delete fields - or right-click a field (Shift+F10 from the keyboard) for the same. Deleting a field removes its value from everyone's contacts, so only someone who may manage shared groups (the Manage groups permission, or an admin) can delete one. Each field has:

• Name - required.
• Kind - Text, Long text, Number, Date, Yes / no, Choice, Link, Email or Phone.
• Choices - for a Choice field, one per line.
• Help - optional; shown as a ? beside the field in the editor.
• Show in the list by default - a column for anyone who has not picked their own columns in Contacts settings › Fields. Your own choice there wins.

Link, Email and Phone fields also appear as actions in a contact's menu, such as "Open Website" or "Call Mobile".

Groups

Open ⋮ > Manage groups… to add groups and to see every group with how many contacts are in it. Each group has Style…, Show, Rename and Delete. Right-clicking a group's chip gives the same options plus Share this group….

Deleting a group never deletes contacts. They are just no longer in it.

Group style

Style… opens the group's look, with a live preview:

• Emblem - None, an Icon (search all icons), or Emoji or text (an emoji or up to three letters).
• Colour - None, a swatch, or any colour with the last swatch.
• Fill - Soft, Solid or Outline.

Plain removes the look. The look shows on the chips, the group pills in the list and the editor's group picker.

Sharing

Pick Share… from a contact's menu, the selection bar, or a group chip's menu (Share this group…). In the Share panel:

1. Turn on Everyone, or tick Roles and People. A role includes anyone given it later.
2. Under They can, pick View or View and edit.
3. Click Share.

Sharing a group shares your own contacts in that group, including ones you add to it later. Stop sharing ends a share.

People you share with see the contacts in their own list, marked as shared by you, and under their ⇄ Shared with me chip. Only you can delete a contact you own, star it, or change who it is shared with.

Importing contacts

Open ⋮ > Import contacts… and drop a file in, or click Choose a file…. It takes:

• vCard (.vcf) - from Google Contacts, iPhone or iCloud, Android, or Outlook.
• CSV - Google's export (choose Google CSV), Outlook's, or any spreadsheet saved as CSV with a heading row.
• A Contacts export (.json) - from ⋮ > Export all (JSON).

The file can be up to 5 MB and 5,000 contacts. Nothing is saved until you click Import.

To get your contacts out of Google: open contacts.google.com, click Export, choose Google CSV or vCard, and save the file. Google's labels become groups here, and starred contacts keep their star.

Columns (CSV only). Each column with something in it is listed with an example value and where it will go. Google and Outlook files arrive already matched; any other CSV is matched on its headings. Change any you like:

• A column can go to a contact field, an address part, groups, a custom field, or New custom field (a text field named after the column, made when you import). A Google custom field is named from its Label column - Account number, not Custom Field 1 - Value.
• Add to notes puts the value in the contact's notes as "Heading: value". Columns nothing matches go there by default, so nothing is lost.
• Leave out skips the column.
• Tick Dates are written month first for an American file, where 3/14/1985 is 14 March. Otherwise dates are read day first, unless a part over 12 makes it obvious.

The preview shows each contact and what will happen to it:

• New - added.
• Already here - the same email address or phone number as one of your contacts. It is merged in unless you choose otherwise. Phone numbers match however they are written, so 07700 900123 and +44 7700 900123 are the same number.
• Same name - the name matches but nothing else does. It may be someone else, so it is added as new unless you choose Merge in.
• Repeat - the same email or phone as a contact earlier in the file. Skipped unless you choose Add.

The choices at the top set a whole kind at once; each row can then be changed. New groups lists the labels you do not have yet; untick one to leave it out (its contacts are still imported).

Merging never overwrites. It fills in what is missing (company, job title, website, birthday, custom fields), adds new emails, phones and addresses, adds the notes, and joins the groups. A merge cannot be undone.

Undo. For 24 hours after an import, Undo this import (on the last step) or ⋮ > Undo last import… removes the contacts it added. Any you have changed since are kept, and groups the import made go too if nobody's contacts are in them.

Export to vCard. ⋮ > Export all (vCard) saves your contacts as a .vcf file that Google Contacts, an iPhone or Outlook can import.

Contacts settings

Click the cog in the banner to open Contacts settings:

• Sort by and its direction.

• Starred first - starred contacts sit at the top.

• Rows - Comfortable or Compact.

• Fields - every field a contact has, with two switches each:

  • List - a column in the contacts list. Any field can be one: the built-in ones (Job title, VAT number, Bank, More email addresses...) and your custom fields. The arrows set the order, left to right. Besides Company, Email, Phone, Groups and Birthday, the list holds eight more columns.
  • Editor - shown in the contact editor. A field switched off keeps what it holds; the editor offers Show N hidden fields to see them for one contact.

  Name is always in both.

• Colour avatars by group - a contact's initials take the colour of their first styled group.

• Birthdays - Show the ones coming up, and Look ahead (7, 14, 30, 60 or 90 days).

• Confirm before deleting - off deletes a single contact without asking. Deleting several always asks.

Reset to defaults puts them back.

Call now

Right-click a contact (or use its menu) and choose Call Sam now…. The Call now screen opens with the contact filled in. Tick Email them the link to send them a Join the call button, then click Start the call: the call opens in a new tab with you as the host, and the screen shows their link to copy or send. They need no account or app; they wait until you let them in. The link works for 3 hours. The contact's Calls list shows your recent calls with them.

These calls belong to the CMS. Contacts Pro switches them on, and so do Booking Pro and the Calendar. Who may start one is the Calls permission in System > Roles (administrators have it).

Settings

Contacts Pro has no site-wide settings. The Contacts settings above are saved in your browser, so they do not follow you to another browser or device.

Permissions and roles

Contacts Pro uses the built-in Contacts permissions in System > Roles, under Contacts:

• View - see and search your own contacts and the ones shared with you.
• Create - add contacts and groups.
• Edit - change contacts, custom fields, group styles and sharing.
• Delete - delete your own contacts.
• Manage groups - rename, delete or restyle any group, not only the ones you created.

Groups are shared by everyone who uses Contacts, so changing one changes it for everybody. Only the group's creator, or someone whose role has Manage groups, may restyle, rename or delete it. Admins have Manage groups unless it is taken away. Groups made before creators were recorded belong to the Manage groups holders only.

When you cannot change a group, Style…, Rename and Delete are greyed out. The Groups panel says "Some groups cannot be styled, renamed or deleted by you." with a help popover explaining why, and a group chip's menu offers Why are these greyed out?. You can still file your own contacts in any group and share yours in it.

Tips

• Custom fields are shared by everyone who uses Contacts. Deleting a field takes its value off every contact, for every user, and cannot be undone.
• Changing a field's kind keeps values that still fit. A value that no longer fits is dropped the next time that contact is saved.
• Renaming a choice in a Choice field does not change contacts that already hold the old one.
• A birthday on 29 February shows on the 28th in other years.
• ⋮ > Export all (JSON) includes birthdays and custom field values, so the file can be imported back in.
• If Contacts Pro is switched off, the built-in Contacts screen comes back. Your contacts, birthdays and custom values stay on the contacts.

Recovery and bulk results

On an updated CMS, unsaved contact edits are kept as a browser draft for your account. Closing an edited contact asks whether to keep editing or keep the draft and close. Opening it again offers to restore or discard that draft, including billing details, addresses, birthdays and custom fields. A custom field you are editing, a group's style and the sharing of a contact or a group are kept the same way.

Deleting contacts moves them to Trash. Open Trash and use an item's context menu to restore it or delete it permanently. Restoration keeps the contact's ID, sharing and Pro fields. Trashed contacts are hidden from normal lists, sharing and birthday notifications until restored.

Bulk group changes report how many were added, already belonged to the group, or failed. Retry failed retries just the unsuccessful contacts.

Limitations

• Needs the built-in Contacts Tool switched on, and Domma CMS 0.93.0 or later.
• Photos in a vCard are not imported; contacts have no photo.
• Import reads your own contacts for matches, not ones shared with you.
• Extra emails and phones, and Long text fields, cannot be edited in place; use the editor.
• On a narrow screen the list shows names only.
• The Calendar birthdays layer needs the Calendar plugin, and shows only your own contacts.