Contact Overview

in the nue self service api, a contact represents an individual person associated with a customer organization while the customer object represents an organization or account, contacts represent the people within that organization who interact with your services, make decisions, and manage relationships core contact concepts a contact record serves as the bridge between your platform and the individuals within customer organizations, enabling individual identity management unique profiles for each person role based access control different permissions based on contact roles personalized communications targeted messaging to specific individuals order and billing management designated contacts for different business functions authentication and portal access individual login credentials for self service portals the contact object is designed to support complex organizational structures while maintaining individual accountability and personalization contact id management and external system integration nue uuids vs external system ids like customers, nue uses uuids (universally unique identifiers) as the primary identifier for all contact records these uuids ensure global uniqueness and are the primary key used throughout the nue platform example nue contact id e96ebe1b 7fe1 4bd3 8f2e 81f4a4883f97 the externalid field for contacts contacts also have an externalid field that stores the corresponding identifier from external systems, particularly salesforce contact ids this enables seamless integration and data synchronization key characteristics of contact externalid initially null when contacts are created through the self service api populated automatically when the contact synchronizes with salesforce contains the salesforce contact id (typically 15 or 18 characters) enables bidirectional synchronization between nue and salesforce used for maintaining relationships across integrated systems example salesforce contact id 003ot00001mx7pziai contact customer relationship every contact must be associated with a customer through the customerid field, creating a clear organizational hierarchy // contact belongs to customer { "id" "e96ebe1b 7fe1 4bd3 8f2e 81f4a4883f97", "name" "john smith", "email" "john smith\@company com", "customerid" "cc5e1f0f 5e14 48cc ab98 9e5b191aa46f", "externalid" null // not yet synced to salesforce } contact lifecycle stages understanding the contact lifecycle helps you implement the right workflows 1\ contact creation stage contact record created for a customer externalid field is null (no salesforce synchronization yet) available for self service portal access and basic operations email serves as unique identifier within the organization 2\ contact activation stage contact begins using self service features profile information gets enriched with usage data may be designated for specific roles (billing contact, technical contact, etc ) ready for order placement and customer interactions 3\ contact synchronization stage when customer places first order, contact data syncs to salesforce externalid field populated with salesforce contact id full crm integration becomes available bidirectional sync maintains data consistency contact salesforce integration for organizations using nue with salesforce integration, understanding how contact records synchronize is crucial for maintaining data integrity synchronization behavior selective synchronization (default) contacts created via self service api don't immediately sync to salesforce synchronization occurs when the associated customer places their first order prevents salesforce contact pollution from prospect organizations maintains clean crm data focused on active customers contact data architecture core relationships contacts in nue connect to several key objects customer parent organization (required relationship) orders contacts can be designated as order contacts for billing or shipping user authentication email addresses can serve as login identifiers communications target for personalized messaging and notifications contact roles and permissions while not explicitly defined in the api, contacts often serve different roles within organizations primary contact main point of contact for the customer relationship billing contact handles invoicing and payment related communications technical contact manages technical aspects and integrations administrative contact handles user management and account administration order contact authorized to place and approve orders data integration points contact data flows through multiple systems salesforce master contact relationship management authentication systems user login and access control communication platforms email marketing and transactional messaging analytics platforms usage tracking and engagement metrics next steps now that you understand the core contact concepts, you can move on to getting started with contact management learn basic crud operations for contacts advanced contact workflows implement complex contact scenarios and bulk operations contact data reference understand all available fields and validation rules you can also explore the customer documentation to understand the parent child relationship between customers and contacts