Creating Contacts and Accounts

Directory of Resources

1. Instructions on when and how to create new contacts and accounts

2. Video showing when and how to create contacts and accounts - downloadable link

3. Merging Contacts and Accounts

Before jumping into the nitty gritty, a quick note on duplicates in Salesforce:

We all agree we want to minimise duplicate contacts in salesforce, we work hard in a number of ways to reduce the likelihood of them occurring and identifying and merging when they do. However, we understand they are a statistical certainty with a database this size and the number and type of entry points. 

Some team members have manual access to merge contacts and accounts; this document provides some guidelines on how to do so effectively. 

When and How

This video shows you first how to search Salesforce for accounts and contacts to ensure you don't create duplicates.  0 - 2 minutes 40 seconds

It then runs through the three major scenarios when you will need to create contacts and/or accounts:

1. When a contact doesn't exist and we need to create their contact and household account. E.g. When a community member donates on program 2 minutes 40 seconds to 5 minutes 55 seconds

2. The contact exists but we want to relate it to an existing household account E.g. when another member of a household donates and someone else has already (partners, parents & children) 5 minutes 55 seconds to 7 minutes 50 seconds

Creating an new organisational account E.g. when we meet a new local NGO on the program and our partnership team need to track communications 7 minutes 50 seconds to end of video