Email Address Sharing

Email address sharing gives you the ability to associate a single email address with multiple contact records, which allows a group of related contacts (such as a family or a team) to maintain individual contact records while sharing an email address.

Note: Contact records that share the same email address must have a unique login, or, for contacts without a login, they must include a unique combination of first name and last name, as duplicate contact records cannot exist in the knowledge base.

For example, Bill Short and Bill Short can share the same email address as long as they have different logins.

If multiple contacts’ logins are left blank, their first or last name must be unique. In this case, Bill Short and William Short can share the same email address, since each name is unique.

Email addresses associated with a single contact record must be unique—that is, for a single contact, the values of contacts.email, contacts.email_alt1, and contacts.email_alt2 cannot contain the same address.

After email address sharing is enabled, records and transactions initiated by a shared email address are associated with the contact considered to be the best fit. The contact-matching process used to determine the best fit is shown in this flowchart.

This figure is a flow diagram that shows the contact-matching process. If a shared email address is detected and it matches only one primary email address, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email address, but the first name or last name values are present and the first and last name match one contact, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match only one primary email, matches more than one email alt1 address, the first name or last name values are present and the first and last name match one contact, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email or email alt1 address, it does not match one alt1 address and one or more alt2 addresses, but the first name or last name values are present and the first and last name match one contact, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email or email alt1 address, it matches one alt1 address and one or more alt2 addresses, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email address, the first name or last name values are not present, and there is more than one active contact, then associate most recently updated contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email address, the first name or last name values are not present, but there is more than one active contact, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email address, the first name or last name values are present, the first and last name do not match one contact, and the first name matches one contact, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email address, the first name or last name values are present, the first and last name do not match one contact, the first name does not match one contact, but the last name matches one contact, then associate matched contact. If a shared email address is detected, it does not match more than one primary email address, the first name or last name values are present, the first and last name do not match one contact, neither the first name nor the last name match one contact, then associate most recently updated contact.

When shared contact addresses are in different fields (for example, contacts.email_alt1 and contacts.email_alt2), the system selects the contact whose address is in the field of highest precedence (contacts.email_alt1). However, if the shared addresses are in the same field (for example, both are in contacts.email_alt1), the system attempts to match the values in the First Name and Last Name fields if available. If no match is found based on field precedence or name values, the system selects the contact record last updated in the database.