What does no permissions set mean?

[Marissa_R]

Did you know that you can have contacts within your account that haven’t given you permission to email them? These contacts are not billable and you cannot email them. They will reside in their own special category called “no permissions set” on the left side bar within your Contacts.

One question you might be asking is how do you get those contacts within your account without having permission? Well, when you are adding contacts one at a time, we ask you to verify that you do have permission to email them.  This box is selected by default. You will have to select a list in order to continue to import/add these contacts. If you do not add a list, you will receive a red error message advising that you do need to select a list. At that point, you can de-select the permission to send checkbox and that will add them into the “no permissions set” category.

If you add contacts without permission and later permission is granted to you, you can edit this within their details. Once you grant permission, they will be added to your Active Contacts and become billable. 

Another way that contacts can be added to the no permissions set is when you have an Event with us and the contact and/or the guest do not join your mailing list or if you do not have a mailing list option set up. This will add their email address but you will not have permission to email them.

Follow these instructions below to grant permission:

• First you would want to find that contact (you can use the search feature)
• This will put you in the Contact’s details section
• Click on the edit button to the left of their Email; that will open up that box for editing
• Check the box next to “I have permission to send” on the left..
• Then choose the list to put the contact on (either type in or hit the + to see your lists)
• Hit “Save

If you want to give your full list or a portion of your list of no permission set contacts permission within your account, you can follow these steps:

• Click on No Permissions Set on the left
• Check All the contacts or the selection of contacts you want to give permission to
• Click Export
• Click Export on the overlay
• Then click on “Download now” on the banner
• Save to your desktop as an easy to remember file
• Now go to Add Contacts > Add a file
• Follow the steps and choose that you have permission and select the list to import to

If you have any questions, let us know!

Helpful FAQs:

How do I browse my lists? 

What are “Active Contacts”? 

Contact Status Types

[JaxResearch]

I Tried to download and re-upload with "express permission" and it did not update my contacts.

[Samantha_O]

Hello @JaxResearch, 

Thanks for posting in the Community.  To change the permission of your contacts, you would need to update other information within your upload. This process is something that requires a few steps that can be confusing. If you need assistance with this, we can help walk you through this.  

Here are the steps: 

1. In your file add a new column - Call it "Test" or something similar
2. Down the column add in a word for each contact - you can use "test" or something else. (Using Copy/Paste will help you out here)
3. Upload the file to your Constant Contact account. 
4. In the new column that you named in Step 1, create a new custom field for this column. 
5. Continue uploading the file like you normally would. 
6. You can then delete the custom field you created, as it is no longer needed. 

This should update the permission for your contacts.  Please keep in mind that you should only be updating permission for contacts that have changed their permission status with you, and is typically done on a case by case basis.  If these contacts have not given you permission, then their status should not change.  

[PMIW_President]

This process did not work.  In a way, that is a good thing, as it is extremely tedious..  but that leaves us no way to change the permissions in bulk.  I have 173 contacts whose permissions I need to change!

[Frankie_P]

Hi @PMIW_President 

I apologize for the experience you've had with these contacts. I can see you have also reached out under a different thread here in the Community as well. We have shared some helpful information and tips in this thread!