Updating the contact history

In some industries, it is necessary to adjust the history of companies after a change of name, acquisition or fragmentation, or the history of a person, e.g., after changing the employer.

To represent this, external contacts have a history relation that lets you assign a predeces­sor or successor to a contact.

Under Additional data/Contact relations the Successor-/predecessor history can be maintained. You can switch from the company to the predecessor company using a hyperlink, and view, for example, the activity history there.

The company name change assistant makes it possible to change the name and split up companies and to transfer data and employees to a new company data record in a controlled manner. The assistant automatically creates the history relation with the predecessor.

Processes and process activities can also be transferred to the successor company, and group assignments can be changed. In addition, contact communication data of the new company can be applied to transferred employees, as in the company change assistant.

The case consolidation is a requirement for a correct assignment of, e.g., incoming correspondences to a case. The assistant shows all open cases (messages, marketing actions, sales and services cases, project folders) of the predecessor company. If staff members are transfered, the open cases of these staff members are also displayed in the list. You can select and deselect all or individual cases for the transfer. With a change of name, the relation with the selected cases is changed, as well as the relation in every open activity in which a selected case is assigned as the main project.

The assistant displays the current group assignment (top companies of the structure). You can associate the successor company directly with a different group or superordinate company.

You have the option to adopt the communication data (phone business, fax, email, URL, prefered comm. language) as well as the status and account manager for new persons or staff members from the previous person or from the new company.

For displaying the contact history, the CRM uses the following features:

• Tree representation of the history relation with predecessors and successors in the contact
• The duplicate check considers history relations. The records that have a history relation are not treated as duplicates.
• The Change of name function in the external company provides an assistant for the change of name and fragmentation of companies. It enables you to transfer data and employees to a new company data record in a controlled manner and automatically establishes the history relationship with the predecessor.
• The Corporate change function of the external person provides an assistant for the change of the employer. This allows you to acquire data in a new person record in a controlled manner, including assign­ment to a new company, and automatically creates the history relation with the predecessor per­son.
• Contacts with predecessors and successors are marked as such (by a "luggage label" icon in the title bar of the contact)
• Automatic deactivation of the contact in the predecessor company (status inactive)

In the Activities tab of the current contact, the View quick filter offers the History for selection. The activ­ity list then also shows the activities of the predecessor company.

The history view is not only available for activities, but also for marketing actions, sales cases, project folders, service calls and cases, service contracts and objects.