Contacts are the core records in SwiftFox. Every individual and every group you work with lives here, and almost everything else in the platform — lists, dashboards, communications, events, financials and reporting — draws on these records.
People and Organisations
Contacts come in two types:
- People — individual contacts (members, supporters, staff, volunteers, donors and so on).
- Organisations — groups that people belong to (companies, branches, clubs, departments, agencies).
People and Organisations are linked together through two-way relationships called roles. A role created on a Person appears on the related Organisation as well, so you only ever record a relationship once and see it from both sides.
The contact profile
Each contact has its own profile. The profile opens on a business card (core details and the contact's main role) and a set of tabs that organise everything known about the contact. Depending on type and configuration, a profile can include:
- Profile — core details and custom fields and sections.
- Financial — financial snapshot, subscriptions, receipts, invoices and tickets purchased.
- Accreditation — CPD goals, requirements and history.
- Projects — project rows the contact is tagged in.
- Insights — email and event engagement metrics.
- Contacts and Roles — contact details, addresses and relationships (called Contacts on an Organisation).
- Contact Restrictions — rules that limit how and when a contact can be contacted.
- Map — geocoded addresses plotted on a map.
- Posts — posts authored by, mentioning, or about the contact.
- Cases — cases the contact is authored in or mentioned in.
- Tasks — tasks assigned to or mentioning the contact.
Where Contacts sit in SwiftFox
Contacts are reachable from Swift Search in the top-right of the screen, and anywhere a contact lookup appears across the platform. Swift Search results are grouped into People, Organisations and Posts, with an All view that shows every match together.
Contacts underpin much of the platform:
- Lists, Action Centres and Maps rely on addresses, geocoding, custom fields and permissions stored on profiles.
- Communications (Email, Text messages) send to the contact details held on each record.
- Forms can create and update contacts on submission.
- Documents merge profile, financial and custom field values into Word templates.
What you can do with Contacts
- Create contacts — add a Person, scan a business card, add an Organisation, bulk import from CSV, or create them via Forms.
- Find contacts — search by name, email, phone, address and any custom field enabled for Swift Search.
- Customise profiles — build custom fields and sections, and choose which fields surface on the business card.
- Record relationships — link People to Organisations with roles, titles and dates.
- Take quick actions — send an email, send a text, make a call, create a task, generate a document, or complete a survey on a contact's behalf.
- Manage data quality — merge duplicate contacts and control who can see and edit each record.
Permissions
Access to contacts is controlled by permissions. You can grant a user or group Full access, View & Edit, or View only on a contact. A lack of access hides the profile or restricts editing. Custom fields and sections can carry their own permissions as well, so visibility and edit rights stay consistent across the platform.
The organisation preview drawer
Opening an organisation from a search result or a linked record opens it in a preview drawer rather than navigating away from the screen you are on. The drawer carries these tabs:
Profile · Financial · Accreditation · Projects · Contacts · Contact Restrictions · Map · Posts · Cases · Tasks
The Financial tab shows the organisation's finances without leaving your current screen:
- Payment Sources
- Financial Snapshot — Paid YTD, Paid Total and Total Arrears
- Financial Years
- Subscriptions, Receipts and Invoices
The drawer is a focused subset of the full organisation profile. The full profile adds Insights, Related Organisations and Interests, so open the record in full when you need those.