How to Use this Site
The goal of this site is keep track of our contacts and connections, and build the Alliance for NJPACE. Information can be entered about each contact, company, organization, municipality, or funder, and this information displayed quickly, easily updated, and eventually published.
To Get Started
You can only create new Entries when you are logged in. You can use the Comments field to update an Entry whether you are logged in or not. Entries are basically free-form text, with images where appropriate, along with custom fields, e.g., for private notes or contact information which you do not want to display publicly. Here’s an example:
The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, and has been providing quality doohickeys to the public ever since. Located in Gotham City, XYZ employs over 2,000 people and does all kinds of awesome things for the Gotham community.
Company vs. Individual Contact
The best way to keep a B-2-B database is to have an Organization (e.g., Company) record, linked to any individual Contact records as needed. In many cases the contact names, emails, and functions can be kept in a table in the Company record, which is easier than creating separate entries and links.
Here’s some industry thinking on this issue:
“In a contact centric system, the database is organized around individual contacts. So, if you have dealings with 3 different people all from the same company, you would have 3 different contact records and in each record would be the company name.
A Contact centric organization makes sense if you are dealing with individuals and you do not need to do such things as look at an organization’s combined history. It is very difficult and clumsy to track company related information separately from contact information. For example, if you want to track information about a company (e.g. sic code, # employees, annual budget, etc.) separately from contact related information (e.g. favorite hobby, home phone number, spouse’s name, etc.). There isn’t an easy way to do that:
– Under which contact do you store the company information?
– Which contact becomes the primary record?
– Do you store the information under both contacts…which makes updating difficult?
– Do you create a “contact” record to serve as the company record and somehow relate the contacts to it?ACCOUNT (BUSINESS) CENTRIC
Account (Business) Centric systems have a layer above contact, the business or account that can link multiple contacts together. This has the advantage of being able to track company-related information entirely separately from contact-related information. This approach is usually easier to:
– See all opportunities for an account/company.
– See combined history.
– Do address updates.
– See the organization and all its contacts in one view.
– Report on company vs. individuals easier.”http://www.bigcontacts.com/news/bid/17951/Contact-vs-Business-Centric-Web-Based-CRM-Software
Managing Priorities
Tags are ideal for managing priorities; just create a tag such as “Priority1”, and you can then search on it via the Tag Cloud.