Contacts Redesign FAQ

[William_A]

Hey everyone!

We’ve recently rolled out a new version of our contact management dashboard to a number of customers. With any change, there can be an adjustment period to get used to a new look. We wanted to make a post that contains answers to some common questions. We’ve received some great feedback on the changes so far, and encourage you to continue providing feedback so that we can make it even better. Here are some resources to help get you started!

Overviews

New Contacts overview (article) - This article includes some side by side screenshots between the previous contacts page and the new design to help you find some common actions you’re used to doing.

New contacts overview (video) - If you learn better by watching a video, this video is just over 3 minutes long and will walk you through the Contacts redesign.

Common Questions

How do I add contacts now? The ‘Add Contacts’ button is still available as long as you are under the Contacts view. If you normally upload contacts from a spreadsheet you can find full instructions in this article. 

If you normally add contacts through an integration (such as Gmail or Outlook) you can follow the same steps, but choose Integration after clicking on Add Contacts. The import options used to be listed under a drop down under Add Contacts. This was changed to give consistency to the primary action buttons throughout the product.

Where do I find Unsubscribed contacts (and other contact statuses): Unsubscribed contacts can be filtered for in the contacts view. This article will provide instructions, as well as explanations for each status.

(UPDATED) How do I find/add “notes” to contacts? Notes have been added in the new Contacts dashboard! Check the Add or view notes subsection under the Managing Contacts section of the overview. If you're not seeing your notes from the previous iteration of the dashboard, you can also still export those notes by exporting contacts, then copy-paste into the new notes setup as needed.

Can I resubscribe a contact? Yes, if you send the unsubscribed contact a link to one of your sign up forms, they can resubscribe through the form. If they’re unable to get signed back up through a sign up form, you can request our Review team do a manual override of the unsubscription. You’ll need to get an email directly from the contact explicitly stating they want to be resubscribed. Then you’ll need to call into the Review team, and follow their processes from there. Since there are a number of legal and Compliance-related elements to unsubscribing and resubscribing, we have to make sure one of these two processes is followed.

[William_A]

Hello @TimothyJ96 ,

What updates are you wanting to do? I'd recommend perusing this guide to see what different functionalities there are to list management.

[William_A]

Hello @D.BruceB2 ,

Simply click the contact you need to edit, click the blue edit button on their little pop-up window, then make the changes you need to.

If the contact was previously unsubscribed and then resubscribed, or if they had to confirm opt-in, you won't be able to edit the contact's email address for Compliance and legal reasons. In that case, you'll need to simply create a new contact.

For more info on using the new contact dashboard

[GImhoff]

Where can I find, or how can I export, a list of email addresses that have been updated BY THE USER? We are doing a contact list audit and want to be sure we've captured all email address updates. Thank you!

[William_A]

Hello @GImhoff ,

There's nothing in place currently to segment or explicitly search for contacts that have updated their own information. You can do a segment for "Last Date Edited" under the Contact Details type, but beyond that there wouldn't be anything on our end that'd be pulling and sorting that info. You'd also still have to go to each individual contact and look at whether the update was by them or you / your org. You can also change your Contacts view to sort by Date Edited; change one of the columns to Date Edited, and then click to sort ascending / descending.

Otherwise the only other way to pull and sort this info would be to Export your contacts / a list and include the "Last Date Updated" field as part of the export, but this also wouldn't tell you who did the update.

The only real way to accomplish what you want would be to either go through your most recent Date Edited contacts and individually check which have been updated by the contact themselves, or to export and compare your current list(s) to the previous versions you've had in other databases.

[GImhoff]

Thank you for the reply. I don't see any option to export the "last date edited", I only see the option to export the "last date updated."

[William_A]

That's the option you want to select.

[GImhoff]

Thanks again! I would think this information is something one would easily want to be able to export... As a non-profit fundraising organization, we have a separate database and rely on the information from constant contact to update our records. If there is no indication of contact information updates, what is the best way for us to ensure up-to-date data? Are there plans for this information to be more easily available in the future? 

As a side, I have found that the Implied vs Express tags give more insight into what constituents have updated their own profiles and contact information themselves. Would you agree that these fields can be used to determine such info?

[William_A]

For the first point, I'm not finding any feature requests for this type of info at the moment. I'll speak with the higher level technical team to see if such a feature request can be submitted to start getting tracks and other forms of gauging interest. Generally most companies / orgs will simply export between our system and their own database as needed for updates - whichever system is more likely to receive automated updates would be the one that needs to be exported from.

Since you can technically upload contacts with either permission type set, it definitely wouldn't be the best indicator, but it is possible to use it as a general indication of contact update activity.

[GImhoff]

Thank you so much!

[BrendaM03]

You have gone from simple and friendly to complicated.  I just want to edit one contact, there is nothing that allows me to do that.  I don't want to delete and reenter.  In fact, I am not at all happy with the new changes.  I don't find them user friendly.

[William_A]

Hello @BrendaM03 ,

To edit a contact, simply click on the contact and a little window will pop up. In that window will be a blue Edit Contact button (see screenshot).

If clicking a contact doesn't open their window, make sure the contact is viable and doesn't have a strikethrough it (contacts like these in reports have since been deleted and thus can't be edited). If it's a viable contact and the window doesn't appear when clicking, or if the edit button is completely missing, perform connectivity troubleshooting to see if your browser cache or extensions/plugins are blocking elements of our site from showing on your screen.

[AmyG72759]

There used to be a post that answered "How to send to List A, but exclude those people who also appear on List B", but it redirects to this page now. Can you provide an explanation of how to exclude certain lists when you send an email? 

[William_A]

Hello @AmyG72759 ,

You'd need to create a separate list by selecting all the contacts in list A, and then Actions > add them to a newly created list (let's call it List C). Then go to List B, select all of its contacts, and then Actions > remove them all from List C. Then you can send your email to that List C.

[CaseyH91]

I'm on your page that shows my lists. Where do I add a new one?

[William_A]

Hello @CaseyH91 ,

Here's how to create and manage lists

Click here for additional resources on using the updated contact dashboard.

[DaveR7]

I need to remove a group of contacts from multiple lists. The previous version of list management allowed me to identify the group, select all the lists the contacts were to be removed from, and with one click it was done. 

I do not see where this is possible with the new system only allowing me to select one list at a time for removal. Because I use list segmentation extensively, I may need to remove a group of contacts from more than 50 lists at a time.

Any suggestions?

[William_A]

Hello @DaveR7 ,

You can still do that in the current version. Simply select (checkmark box) the contacts you wish to remove from the lists, click the Actions menu, and then select remove from lists to decide which lists to remove the contacts from.

If you need to distill your contacts first with specific parameters, you can utilize segmentation, the search function, or go to a common list you know they're all a part of.

[DaveR7]

That of course works with the older version but not the new version. The new version of contact management only allows you to select one list at a time.

(Now would be a good time to for CC to give us the names of the versions that are in play so we can accurately identify the version when talking with support or forums).

[William_A]

The older system for contacts has been fully retired at this time, so there are no other versions at the moment.

[DaveR7]

Oh good, that means we are on the same version. You stated that you can "click the Actions menu, and then select remove from lists to decide which lists to remove the contacts from." You are using the plural 'lists' indicating that you can remove contacts from more than one list at a time. In my contact management I can only find the action to remove contacts from one list at a time. Please show me how to remove a group of contacts from more than one list at a time. Thanks

[JanetH453]

I can not access the contact list . How do I access it?

[William_A]

Hello @JanetH453 ,

Simply go to the Contacts button in the top navigation bar, then go to the Contacts sub-tab on that page.

For a full rundown of using the current contacts system (compared to the recently retired old one), click here.

[BIJC]

RE: 

"View the engagement activity

The engagement data shows the date and time you sent an email to the contact, when they opened it, and if they clicked any link in it. It also shows if the email bounced, or if the contact unsubscribed after opening it. The data is for the last five years or last 200 emails, whichever limit you reach first."

Engagement activity USED to go back to the very first email. Now it is limited to 200, in my case that means 5 months ago. I'm working with a contact whose emails are bouncing so this is not helpful. Can this be set as a preference? 

[William_A]

Hello @BIJC ,

There are no settings for contacts' engagement reports.