ContactsLaw provides a number of classification/categorisation mechanisms, each one specialised to suit a particular purpose; for example, industry groups. The integrity of the data in the system is maximised if these mechanisms are used only for their intended purpose. There is no value, for instance, in using the 'position' field to hold information about a
contact's relationship to another person, or in storing identification numbers in telephone number fields.
While ContactsLaw captures the vast majority of the information you want to store against contacts,
files,
documents and other types of records, it is also possible to extend the classification/categorisation capabilities of the system through
tagging.
Tags are words or short phrases that are applied to information records. Each record can have an unlimited number of tags assigned to it, and there is no inherent meaning in a tag. This means that you can create tags for any purpose, mixing and matching tags with very different associated meanings. For example, you might use tags to:
- Group together important people (such as members of parliament)
- Tag contacts for inclusion in a particular marketing campaign
- Highlight problems with records by tagging them with a 'for review' tag
- Warn other staff against doing business with contacts you tag as 'unreliable' or 'dangerous'
- Identify 'priority' clients who receive special treatment
Navigation
In most places they appear within the application, you can click on tags to view a list of contacts bearing that tag. A contact's tags are displayed on the
contact summary tab.
Permissions
Tagging is controlled by permissions at the practice level. Each group/member may be allowed to create tags, use only existing tags or not be permitted to tag records at all. When tagging contacts, members with full permissions are able to type freeform (with existing tags appearing as suggestions). Members with limited permissions must select from a list of existing tags only.
Querying tags
In addition to being able to list all contacts tagged with a particular term, you can use tags to build the criteria for contact lists. This makes it possible to find contacts who have one of a particular set of tags (e.g. 'priority' OR 'good standing'), or show only contacts who have all of a particular set of tags (e.g. 'marketing group B' AND 'problematic').
You can also apply tags to contacts en-masse by building a contact list, running the query and selecting the 'tag all' option. The advantage of this approach is that you can use rules to build lists quickly, then add/remove tags to refine the list over the longer term.
Managing tags
A tag editor is provided at the practice level. As well as allowing new tags to be created in a top-down fashion (vs. the bottom-up approach at the contact level), you can rename or delete existing tags and merge tags which have become synonymous with each other. You can also use the editor to assign tags to specific categories.
Conventions
In many other systems which use tagging, tag names generally follow these conventions:
- all lowercase (except for acronyms)
- singular rather than plural
- as short and concise as possible