Contacts and CRM

Every person who messages you becomes a contact. The CRM part of Sela keeps their details, channels and history in one place, and links them to companies, work and conversations. This page covers the Contacts screen, companies, custom fields, data import, segments, forms and reports.

Where to find it#

Contacts#

The Contacts page shows a "Customer ledger" table. Search with "Search name, phone, or email", filter by stage, lifecycle or archived, choose columns, and select several rows for bulk actions. The list shows the first 100 records, so search or filter to narrow down.

Columns you can show: Name, Company, Stage, Contact, Lifecycle, Conversation status, Assignee, Last message and Date added.

Stages and lifecycle#

A contact has a stage: New, Qualified, Booked, Order waiting, Follow-up, Escalated or Closed. It also has a lifecycle stage (by default Lead, Active customer, Inactive, Lost). Edit lifecycle stages in Settings, Inbox settings, Lifecycle. Anyone can view them, and managing settings is needed to change them.

Create, edit, archive#

1. Choose New contact and enter at least a name, phone number or email.
2. To change details, open the record and edit. Editing needs the edit-contacts permission, which agents have. Merged records are read-only.
3. Archive removes a contact from the working list. Restore brings it back, except a contact that was archived by a merge.

Bulk actions on selected contacts: Assign tags (adds tags, never removes them) and Archive.

Channel identities#

A contact can have several identities, such as a WhatsApp number, an Instagram account and an email. Open the record inspector to link or unlink identities.

Duplicates and merging#

The record inspector lists possible duplicates. You can refresh suggestions, Dismiss a suggestion or Merge.

Merging needs the merge permission (managers and admins). You must give a reason and type a confirmation word. The duplicate is archived and its conversations, identities and related records move to the surviving contact.

Phone privacy#

Phone numbers are masked for most roles. A member with the reveal permission can reveal a number. Filtering a segment on unmasked fields also needs that permission.

Companies#

Companies group contacts, such as staff of one customer. A company has a status (prospect, active, inactive, archived), attached contacts and a primary contact. You can create, edit, archive and restore companies. Merging companies needs the company-merge permission. Custom fields can be shown on the company record.

Custom fields#

Custom fields add your own data to records. Open Settings, Workspace setup, then the Contact fields tab (the Layouts tab controls where fields appear).

• Applies to: contacts, companies, conversations, work items, tasks and appointments.
• Types: short text, long text, integer, decimal, money, date, date and time, checkbox, single select, multi select, member, team, contact, company, URL, email and phone.
• Where they show: the conversation panel, the contact profile, work cards and the company record.

Custom fields and layouts need the Operations plan or higher.

Notes and activity#

• Add internal notes in the inbox reply box. They stay on the conversation and are never sent to the customer. See Inbox and conversations.
• The Account tab of the inbox Context panel shows the contact's fields, company, tags and a customer summary card.
• The Activity page (Overview, Activity) has a Timeline of workspace changes, Notifications, and Later for items you saved.
• The Customers page (an older "Customer Memory" profile with a stage filter and timeline) is still reachable by URL but is not in the sidebar.

Segments and saved views#

A segment is a saved rule on the Contacts page, not a fixed list. Contacts that match the rule at any moment appear in it.

1. On Contacts, open the filter or segment control.
2. Add rules on Stage, Lifecycle, Tags, Country, Language or Source, using Equals, Contains or Exists.
3. Save the segment. It is a personal saved view.

Conversation views in the inbox are separate. See Inbox and conversations.

Import contacts#

Open Settings, Data & plan, Import & export.

1. Upload a CSV file of contacts (2 MB maximum).
2. Review the dry-run preview. Nothing is written yet. Fix rows shown in the row-error view.
3. Choose Apply batch to import.

Imports do not send notifications and do not trigger automations. The same page also lets you request a CSV or PDF export and set weekly or monthly scheduled exports to email recipients (up to 20 recipients, with a 7 or 30 day window).

Forms and approving answers#

Forms let you collect details from a customer through a link, on any channel.

Build a form#

Open Settings, Inbox settings, Forms.

• Give the form a shortcut name (same rules as reply shortcuts), a title, an intro message (up to 1,000 characters) and a success message.
• Add up to 20 fields. Each field can map to a contact profile field, an existing custom field, or be an extra question. Input types include text, numbers, money, date, checkbox, select, URL, email and phone.
• Choose personal (only you) or workspace scope (managers and admins). Up to 100 forms per scope.

Send a form#

In the inbox reply box, type / and pick the form. The customer receives a message with a short link. You can schedule the send up to 7 days ahead. Links are never prefilled from the contact record.

Approve the answers#

The customer sees a short confirmation after submitting. The answers appear as a card on the conversation timeline for your team.

By default a form can be filled once. Use Send edit link to let the customer correct their answers, up to 5 times.

Automatic forms#

Workspace-scope forms can be sent automatically when a conversation starts or a set number of minutes after it starts, on chosen channels, skipping contacts whose profile is already complete or who already received the form. Automatic sending needs the Operations plan. Manual forms work on Inbox.

CRM reports#

Open Overview, Reports. You need the reports permission, so agents do not see this page by default.

• Choose a time window in days.
• Cards cover Needs attention, Conversation states, Close categories, Active stages, Team workload, Commercial picture and Activity events.
• Choose Generate CSV & PDF to export (needs the export permission; windows up to 366 days; files expire after 90 days).

A separate Reporting page has a conversation report with filters, a trend chart and Export CSV. See Reports and analytics for the full picture, and Team, roles and permissions for who can see what.