Contacts and discussions logs

[Blueskidoo]

I am in sales and so most of what my team works with is contacts and logs of contacts.

This looks like a great program, but what i really need is a way to log what went on in my conversations with the clients so the next person to talk to them will know what went on.  There also needs to be an address book function.

While I can use a file for that sort of thing, it would be so great if it was in-line in the program to just click on the contact in the address book, and there would be a button that would show all the history of the conversations, and I could link in the e-mails and faxes that were sent to and from that person, with the newest entry first.

That way I look up the person's phone number, dial, then click on their log, and type in the conversation notes on the fly.  Add in the follow up e-mail and save.  Then the next time I talk to them I just pop open their log and see what we talked about before.

It would be perfect!

[Franco Dal Molin]

Thank you for describing your use scenario in detail and outlining your needs and requirements.

Generally speaking, the idea of introducing "contact or address objects" is great. Just to be clear, these contacts won't be registered Collanos users, just simple addresses. Said this, as you probably know, we are a server-less system, with no central storage, just replicating all the content shared in team workspaces between the members of the space.

Now, similar to the existing Note or Task objects, we would introduce a new Address/Contact object that members can create and add to their workspaces. We would also look into the possibility of adding import/export of typical contact formats, such as vCards. Like this you would be able to drag and drop a Contact/vCard let's say directly from Outlook into a Collanos workspace and it would automatically become a Collanos Address/Contact object.

Functionality-wise, we would have to be careful and add simple and most basic features first. I agree, a "History" to take note of activities would be needed of course. Also the possibility to call phone numbers or emails, could be added easily (we have already integrated VoIP into the imminent November release). Not so sure about attaching documents/emails "inside" the address object, but we'll look into this option as well.

Please understand that we would not (want to) evolve much further than that, let's say into a CRM system. Our application philosophy is to be a unified collaboration tool for professional ad-hoc team work across organizations. The scenario you described would fit this criteria perfectly, if it stays withing the outlined philosophy and used "tactically" within some shared workspaces. If you would want to manage hundreds or thousands of contacts in a "CRM space", and expecting all usual CRM features, this for example would be the wrong approach. In such a case you would be much better off picking a real CRM system.

I added this requirement to our product management planning process. I am confident it will make it into one of the forthcoming releases.