Company, department and private contacts
- Audience: Admins
Last updated
Contacts is your company's shared address book for customers, vendors and partners. Every contact has a type that decides who can see it. You manage them in the admin portal, and people with the Communicator apps see the same contacts there.
Some labels in your portal or apps may look slightly different from this guide.
The three contact types
| Type | Who sees it | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Global | Everyone on your account. | Company wide contacts, such as shared customers and vendors. |
| Department | Only members of the departments you choose. It needs at least one department. | Contacts one team works with. |
| Private | Only its owner, who is one extension. | A person's own contacts. |
Each contact in the list shows its type, and a private one shows its owner. Your company contacts are Global in the portal.
Who can do what
What someone can change depends on their role.
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Manages all three types. Change a contact's type, import and export files, and give a private contact to any extension or any department. |
| Department administrator | On Global contacts: view, add, edit, delete, import and export. On Department contacts: full control within their own departments. On Private contacts: their own only. |
| Department user | View, search, add and edit Global contacts. Add and edit contacts in their departments. Delete only contacts they own, and can't delete Global contacts. Full control of their own private contacts. No import or export. |
| Desk phone user | Can look at Global contacts and change nothing. |
The department administrator role usually follows a person's department membership, but how someone gets it may depend on how your account is set up. Ask support if you're not sure who has that role.
Add a contact
- Step 1:Open Contacts
In the admin portal, open Contacts.
- Step 2:Add the contact
Choose Add Contact and fill in the details.
- Step 3:Choose who sees it
Set Contact Visibility. Pick Global, Private (and choose the extension that owns it), or Department (and choose one or more departments).
- Step 4:Save
Save the contact.
To add many contacts at once, see import and export contacts.
Contacts that come from another system
Contacts that sync in from another source, such as a Microsoft 365 directory, arrive as Global and are read only. You can't edit, delete or merge them. To set up that sync, see Sync your Microsoft 365 directory into contacts.
The Microsoft 365 integration features described on this page require an active, permitted connection to Microsoft 365. Availability depends on that system's supported APIs and permissions.
Where people see contacts
If your account includes the Communicator apps add-on, users see these contacts in the Contacts tab of Communicator, with the same permissions. Their side of the story is in company, department and personal contacts.
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Still stuck? Contact support
Our team in West Palm Beach can walk you through it. Tell us your name, your company and what you were trying to do.