Creating and linking Master Contact records

Master contact records are used to apply standard values to the contact records in an address book. When you link a master contact to a contact, the contact record inherits the related field values from the master contact record. Also, when you edit a master contact record, the related contact record also gets updated. A master contact is used to create or edit multiple contacts that contain the same fields, which helps to save time and effort.

For example, when an organization is supporting a company, there might be several individual contacts within that company who have the same company name, address, and service level agreement. You can associate these three fields with the master contact record for the company, so that all the individual contacts have the same values. 

The following topics are provided:

Before you begin

• Ensure that in the Properties pane of the Contact item, you have specified the Master Contact.
• Ensure that in the Properties pane of the Master Contact item, you have specified a value for the Master Contact Key field.
  For example, you can specify Department as the Master Contact Key. For more information about configuring a Master Contact Key, see Configuring Master Contact records.

To create a Master Contact

1. Click the More tab and select Address Book.
2. Select Actions > New > addressbookName / Master Contact.
3. On the New: Master Contact tab, in the Name field, enter the name for the master contact.
4. In the record fields (for example, Department or Email Address), enter an appropriate value.
5. Perform one of the following steps:
   • To save the current changes and continue working on the record, click Save.
   • To save and close the form, click Submit.

After creating a master contact, you can create a new linked contact from the master contact record by clicking the Create Contact button. The new contact inherits the value of the corresponding fields from the master contact.

To link a master contact to an existing contact

1. Click the More tab and select Address Book.
2. Select a contact and click Edit.
3. Click Select Master Contact.
4. In the Search Lookup window, select a master contact record and click Select.
5. Click Save.
   When you link a master contact to a contact, the values of the corresponding fields in the contact record are overwritten by that in the master contact record. If a field  (for example, Department or Email Address) is a primary key in the contact record, the contact record will not be saved.
6. (Optional) To link the master contact to multiple contacts, repeat steps 2 to 5.

You can view the linked contacts from the master contact record by clicking the View Contacts button. 

Related topics

Creating contact records

Editing contacts

Deleting contacts