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Sales > Accounts > Managing Accounts > Tracking Relationships Between Accounts and Contacts

Tracking Relationships Between Accounts and Contacts

You can link accounts to contacts in a number of ways. From an Account Detail page, you can link existing contacts to the account, and you can also create new contacts that are automatically linked to the account. Similarly, from a Contact Detail page, you can link existing accounts to the contact, and you can also create new accounts that are automatically linked to the contact.

About the Information for an Account Contact

After you link an account and a contact, you can view the details of the account contact in the Account Contact Edit page. Company administrators can create custom fields to store additional information about account contacts and add those custom fields to the Account Contact Edit page layout. Then, users who have access to the account contact records can view and update the information in the custom fields.

Company administrators create custom fields for account contacts through the Account Contact Fields link, which is available for both the Account and the Contact record types in the application customization pages of Oracle CRM On Demand. Company administrators create layouts for the Account Contact Edit page through the Account Contact Page Layout link, which is also available for both the Account and the Contact record types. For more information about adding custom fields and creating page layouts, see Application Customization.

About the Primary Contact for an Account

You can link multiple contacts to an account, but one of the linked contacts must be specified as the primary contact for the account. The first contact that is linked to an account is automatically specified as the primary contact for the account, but you can later specify a different primary contact for the account. For information about changing the primary contact for an account, see Changing an Account Primary Contact.

The name of the primary contact is shown in the Primary Contact field on the Account Detail page, if that field is present in your Account Detail page layout. Also, in the Contacts related information section of the Account Detail page, if the Primary Contact check box is present in the layout, then the check box is selected in the row for the primary contact. Your administrator determines whether the Primary Contact field and the Primary Contact check box are present on the layouts.

In the Contacts related information section of the Account Detail page, the primary contact for the account always appears as the first contact in the list of contacts that are linked to the account, even if the Primary Contact check box is not shown in the Contacts related information section of the Account Detail page. If you click Show Full List to open the full list of linked contacts, then the primary contact might appear as the first record on the list page, even if you sort the list using a field such as Last Name or First Name.

The position of the primary contact in the list depends on how many records are in the list and the number of records that you display on your list page. For example, assume that you have a total of 180 contacts linked to an account, the last name of the primary contact for the account begins with the last letter of the alphabet, and you display 100 records on your list page. In that case, the primary contact appears as the first record in the second page of your list when you sort the list using the Last Name field.

About Contact Roles

When you link an account and a contact, you can specify the roles that the contact has at the account. Recording a contact's role at a company is critical to understanding the influence that the contact has on buying decisions at the account. For example, you might want to track the following contact relationships for an account: Approver, User and Evaluator, User and Approver, User and Decision Maker, Evaluator and Approver, Evaluator and Decision Maker, and Unknown.

The following procedure describes how to link contacts to an account.

To link contacts to an account

1. Select the account that you want.

   For information on selecting records, see Finding Records.

2. To create a new contact that is linked to the account, do the following:
   1. On the Account Detail page, in the Contacts related information section, click New.
   2. On the Contact Edit page, enter the information for the new contact, and then save your changes.

      NOTE: Certain fields on the Contact Edit page might be automatically populated with values from the account record.

3. To link an existing contact to the account, do the following:
   1. On the Account Detail page, in the Contacts related information section, click Add.
   2. On the Contacts List page, click the Lookup icon, and select the contact that you want to link to the account.

      You can link up to five contacts to the account in the Contacts List page.

   3. (Optional) For each contact, select an option that defines the primary role of the contact at the account.

      NOTE: After you link a contact to the account, you can add additional roles for the contact at the account.

   4. Save your changes.

The following procedure describes how to link accounts to a contact.

To link accounts to a contact

1. Select the contact that you want.

   For information on selecting records, see Finding Records.

2. To create a new account that is linked to the contact, do the following:
   1. On the Contact Detail page, in the Accounts related information section, click New.
   2. On the Account Edit page, enter the information for the new account, and then save your changes
3. To link an existing account to the contact, do the following:
   1. On the Contact Detail page, in the Accounts related information section, click Add.
   2. On the Add Account page, click the Lookup icon, and select the account that you want to link to the contact.

      You can link up to five accounts to the contact in the Add Account page.

   3. (Optional) For each account, select an option that defines the primary role of the contact at the account.

      NOTE: After you link an account to the contact, you can add additional roles for the contact at the account.

   4. Save your changes.

The following procedure describes how to view and update the details of an account contact.

To view and update the details of an account contact

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the Account Detail page, in the Contacts related information section, click the Edit link for the contact.
   • On the Contact Detail page, in the Accounts related information section, click the Edit link for the account.

     The Account Contact Edit page shows the details of the related contact. The fields in the page might be read-only, or you might be able to add and change information on the page, depending on how your company administrator sets up the page layout.

2. Update the information as required, and then save your changes.

The following procedure describes how update the role information for an account contact.

To update the role information for an account contact

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the Account Detail page, in the Contacts related information section, click the Edit Roles link for the contact.
   • On the Contact Detail page, in the Accounts related information section, click the Edit Roles link for the account.

     The Account Roles page or the Contact Roles page shows the available and selected roles for the account contact.

2. In the Account Roles page or the Contact Roles page, in the Available section, select the roles for the contact, and then use the directional arrow to move the roles to the Selected section.
3. Use the up arrow and down arrows to change the order of the roles in the Selected section.

   The role at the top of the list is the primary role.

4. Save your changes.