Techniques to Categorize Accounts

You may wish to group multiple accounts into categories such as industry type, geographic region, or some other criteria. There are three techniques you can use:

Using a Custom Field for Categorization

• Add a custom field to the accounts and use this field to categorize the accounts. This is the simplest technique; however, it does not provide the ability to add different groups of custom fields for each account category. All custom fields are visible for all accounts.

Using a Hierarchy for Categorization

• Place all similar accounts in the hierarchy under an “organisation” used to represent the category. This technique works when you wish to "roll-up" information such as the value of the sales pipeline in the Sales Tracking application. However, as with a custom field technique, it does not support different groups of custom fields for each category.

Using an Organization Category for Categorization

• Create an organisation category using the Configuration, Roles & Permissions, Organisation Categories. This is the only technique that provides the ability to specify different groups of custom fields for each account category. You can also use this method to control the visibility of all accounts in each category to different groups of people.

Adding Contacts to Organisations

As with internal people, external contacts are always created within the context of an organisation, so when you wish to add a new person to the system you must first display the appropriate organisation.

Standard Contact Fields

The same fields describe an external contact as an internal user:

The standard fields can be extended through the addition of custom fields.

You can also upload accounts and contacts in bulk.

You can also create self-signup for your contact.

See Also

• Organization Categories