CRM: Understanding Primary Contacts
Learn how primary contacts function in Unificus and manage their portal access options.
What is a Primary Contact?
A Primary Contact represents the designated representative for a Company. This individual receives all business communications on the Company’s behalf and maintains access to the Company Portal.
- When you establish a Company as a Prospect or Client, assigning a Primary Contact with a valid email address is mandatory.
- For Companies created as Leads, adding a Primary Contact is optional. However, without one, the Company won’t gain portal login credentials, won’t receive email notifications, and will appear on the idle Company List until a Primary Contact is assigned.
- Once designated as Primary Contact, that person gets the Profile Switcher feature in their account. This allows them to move between different Company profiles and their Individual profile with ease. They may also designate a “Preferred Profile,” ensuring they land in that Profile whenever they access the Portal from a logged-out state.
What is the “Individual Profile”?
Many organizations require interactions with individuals in two distinct capacities: as Company representatives and as independent entities. Consider this scenario: a company’s CEO contracts a landscaping firm for office grounds maintenance (acting as Company representative), but later hires the same firm for their residential property (as an individual customer).
In this setup, the landscaping company bills the Company for office work and issues a separate invoice to the Individual for residential services—these function as two independent Clients within the system.
When the CEO logs into the portal, the Profile Switcher lets them toggle between Company mode (to review and pay the office landscaping invoice) and Individual mode (for their residence invoice). A single login grants access to multiple representations: as Company Primary Contact and as an Individual.
Concealing the Individual Portal/Profile from a Primary Contact
If a Primary Contact interacts exclusively through their Company role rather than as an Individual, you may choose to conceal the Individual portal/profile to eliminate unnecessary confusion.
Enabling this option prevents the Primary Contact from accessing Individual Mode. They will only see the Company Portal and cannot switch to their Individual portal via the Flyout Menu. They retain the ability to switch between multiple Company Portals if they serve as Primary Contact for several companies.
The Prevent Switching feature applies this logic:
- The Primary Contact becomes inaccessible throughout the Platform except in the Contact List. This safeguards Automations and Assignments from targeting the ‘Individual’ profile instead of the Company.
- Primary Contacts managing multiple Companies with no designated favorite will automatically load the most recent company by default.
- If a Primary Contact’s Individual Portal is marked as their favorite, the system hides it and designates their latest company as the favorite instead.
- Removing Primary Contact status from a Contact resets switching preferences, allowing them to access their Individual Portal.
Setting Up Company-Specific Transactional Email Addresses
You may designate a separate email address specifically for Company transactional communications:
Note that Company-Specific email addresses exclusively handle transactional emails from that Company. This address cannot serve login functions or any other purpose outside transactional communications.
Where is the Prevent Switching Setting Located?
Kickoff Forms
The “Prevent this Primary Contact from switching into ‘Individual mode’” option in Kickoff Forms applies solely to Unknown Targets (new or unrecognized Contacts within the Company Name Field). Existing Primary Contacts in the system remain unaffected. To modify Known Contacts, use the Contact’s Profile page or Bulk Edit.
Company Imports
CRM > Company
When manually creating a Company or assigning a Primary Contact, toggle the “Prevent this Primary Contact from switching into ‘Individual mode’” option.
CRM > Contacts
Select your Primary Contact and choose ‘Edit’ within the Contact Details section. The setting appears under Company Connections.
Learn about Adding & Editing Contacts
CRM > Contacts Bulk Edit
For multiple Primary Contacts needing this restriction, use the Bulk Edit feature. Note: larger batches require processing in groups of maximum 50 Contacts.