Contacts Book
Create and manage a per-bot address book to quickly target users from the Send Message dialog.
Overview
Contacts Book is a manual address book stored per bot. It is used to quickly pick a target when sending a message. This feature requires a dedicated license. If the Contacts Book button is not visible, access is not enabled for your account.
Contacts Book is different from the Contacts list in Conversations. The Conversations contacts list is auto-generated from real user chats. Contacts Book entries are curated and maintained manually.
Accessing the Contacts Book
Contacts Book is opened from the Send Message dialog inside Conversations. From there, the button next to Target User opens the Contacts Book dialog.
Contacts Book is not available from the Broadcast Widget page.
Search contacts
Search runs from the search box at the top of the dialog. Type a value and press Enter (or click the magnifier) to filter the list using matches across all contact fields. To reset the view, clear the search text and run the search again.
Add, view, and edit contacts
New entries are created with Add contact, using the fields defined in the template. Existing entries can be opened by double clicking a row, or by using View from the row menu. Edits are applied by switching to Edit mode and saving the changes.
A conversation contact can be added also by clicking the Add Contact button that is shown next the contact picture corner. If the contact is already stored inside the contacts book, the button will not appear.
Clicking the button will directly open the Add Contact dialog, with the fields pre-filled, based on the Contacts Book Template's associated fields. If the template does not have any associated fields set on the columns, the Add Contact dialog will be pre-filled with the basic contact info.
Delete contacts
Deleting a contact is permanent. After clicking delete, a confirmation is shown and a second step asks you to type the required text before the contact is removed.
First the classic dialog will show up..
If pressing ok, then the final confirm dialog will show up.
Deleted contacts can’t be recovered. Recreate them manually or re-import the CSV.
Import contacts from CSV
Use Import to upload a CSV file and populate the Contacts Book. After selecting the file and confirming, the import runs in the background and progress is shown in the dialog footer. When the job completes, the contacts list refreshes automatically.
The CSV must match the current template fields, and column order follows the current template order.
Import creates or updates contacts. The decision is based on the template Import key field.
Export contacts to CSV
Use Export to generate a CSV from the current Contacts Book. When the export job completes, a download link appears in the dialog footer and can be used to download the file. Export also works with zero contacts, which makes it useful to download an empty CSV template.
Export stays disabled until you download the file. It re-enables after download or after a failed job.
Selecting a contact
Selecting a row enables Select contact and fills Target User using the default contact field. If multiple Contact fields exist, the dropdown can be used to choose a specific contact value.
All other fields on the selected contact are also passed to the broadcast execution and can be used like variables in the broadcast content.
You can also quickly select a contact by typing from the target user textbox. The search requires at least two characters and awaits around 2 seconds before to start the research, in order to allow more typing before searching.
Clicking on a contact entry, will fill the target user automatically with the previewed phone number or userid.
Multiple contact field selection is not available here; for that, you'll have always to open the contacts book and do it from there.
This research is channel-based, meaning the contacts those won't have any contact field of the selected channel above, it will not be listed.
Template editor
The template defines the contact schema for this bot. It also defines the CSV format.
Changing the template affects Import and Export. Be careful if you already have contacts.
Deleting a template field deletes that value from all contacts.
Use Add field to create a new template field. Once the necessary fields are filled within the Add Field dialog, use Confirm to add the field to the template.
Use Save to persist all template changes for the bot. Saving applies field adds, edits, deletes, and order changes. It also updates the expected CSV columns for Import and Export.
Each template field has a type. Text stores a single line. Textarea stores multiple lines. Contact stores a target-able value, like a phone number or userId.
Template field settings
Field name is the label shown in the UI. Order defines the column order in the list.
Associated variable defines the variable name that will receive this contact field value when you select a contact and send the broadcast.
You can then use it in messages with dynamic parsing, like {{company_name}} or {{user_name}}. If you don’t associate a variable, the value is still passed as {{contact_(template field name)}} to the conversation.
As a practical example: If "Description" is associated with user_name, the User Name will be updated with the Description content.
Association is unique, meaning the same variable can be only associated to one template field. Changing it, will remove the previous association from the other field, to the new one.
Use as import key defines the identifier used for import updates. Mandatory makes the field required on create and edit.
Display in contact list shows the field in the main list. Default contact value is used by Select contact.
Group with default contact nests a contact field under the default one.
Template validations and rules
One Import key field is required. One Default contact value field is required. Only one field can be the import key.
If Use as import key is enabled, Mandatory is enforced automatically. If Default contact value is enabled, mandatory and list display are enforced. If Group with default contact is enabled, list display is enforced.
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