Contacts (Complainants/Respondents)

Edit a New Contact

The easiest way to create a new Contact is from the Practice ribbon, under Contacts. Select “New.”

This will take you to the Edit New Contact window.

Here, we can enter data on our contacts including first/last name, which Contact Group they are in (Type), ID, what Currency they use, and all other personal information about the contact. You can specify with the “is Company” checkbox whether this Contact record refers to a Company.

Note: The SN field is for the last 4 digits of the Contact’s SSN. They are only viewable by the Contact owner, and Should NOT be used to store SSN information belonging to clients. Secure fields are encrypted using 256-bit Blowfish encryption. Blowfish is a public domain cipher for securing communications between the client and the server. The HoudiniESQ implementation offers greater security as each request and response is uniquely keyed and encrypted.

We can also quickly associate Matters, Documents, Events, Notes, and Trust/Retainer Ledger information with them.

Select a Group from the drop down menu.

Why does the Contact form have a required field called Group? A Group is the type of Contact you want to use for this Contact. The Group function is also a great way to visualize your contacts. You can sort and filter by Group.

We can also add Custom Fields to the Contact form. We’ll delve into custom fields in more detail later in this document, under “Advanced Customization”.

Adding Phone Numbers

To add a Phone Number click the plus sign icon. This will add a Phone Number entry field. Enter the phone number without any formatting; the phone number will be formatted for you. You can also denote whether this is the Primary Phone Number for this Contact. To remove a Phone Number click the minus icon. To collapse all phone numbers click the Phone Number area title bar. Click it to toggle between expanded and collapsed views. Next, we’ll enter the Contact’s email.

Adding Email Addresses

To add an Email Address, click the plus sign icon. This will add an Email entry field. To remove an Email Address, click the minus icon. To collapse all email addresses click the Email Address area title bar. Click it to toggle between expanded and collapsed views. Finally, we’ll add the postal address of this contact. This process works similar to the phone and email fields.

Adding Lead Info

You can add referral, or lead, information about a contact by clicking the person icon in the upper-right hand corner of the Edit Contact info window.

This will bring up a new sidebar. You can enter who the contact was referred by, how you made contact initially, when you’d like to make a follow-up with the contact, and a memo for internal use. You can also record your last 3 contact attempts and their results.

Appointment Finder

 The Appointment Finder is a fast, easy way to schedule an appointment for a Contact in HoudiniESQ. It will automatically scan the Events that make up your day for available timeslots. You can access it by clicking the “Schedule Appointment” button at the bottom of the Contact form.

Additionally, you can also access the Appointment Finder through the Contact List from the Main Menu.

This will bring up the Appointment Finder form.

From here, you can search for open slots in a particular day with the following fields:
Date – This is the Date which you want to find an appointment for. It is a standard Date lookup field (see the Navigation section for more details). It defaults to the current date.
Duration – This field allows you to specify the length (in hours) that your appointment is going to last.
Search by – This will allow you to search by either a Staff member’s calendar, or your own personal calendar.
Limit Search to (optional) – The two dropdown menus in this area will allow you to limit your search to a particular Staff member or Calendar.

Once you have determined your search criteria, click the “Search” button to pull up a list of available time slots.

If the search results are unsatisfactory, you can change your criteria by clicking the “Retry” button. Once you have found a time slot which meets your needs, select it with the mouse.

Then, select the Staff member who will be handling the appointment, select the Calendar you want it to appear under, and the Event|Task type it will be classified as. For more information on Event|Task Types, review the corresponding section in this document.

Once you are ready to schedule the appointment, click the “Schedule” button. A dialogue box will appear informing you that your appointment has been scheduled.

Click OK to close the dialogue box. You can also send an Email Confirmation to the Contact with the “Email Confirmation” button. Once you are finished, click “Done”.

Edit Contacts

You can view and edit all of your contacts easily in HoudiniESQ through the Edit Contacts form. To access this form, select “List” from the Contacts section of the Practice ribbon.

Doing so will open the Edit Contacts form. Contacts are shown in a standard List view; for more information on List views, consult the Navigation section of this document.

The tab at the top will allow you to switch views between general Contacts and Staff members. You can search for a particular Contact using the lookup field. In addition, the Filter field at the right will let you implement a basic filter for contacts by Type, Subtype, and Status code. Selecting the “my contacts” checkbox will allow you to filter for your Contacts only; you can also click the “my private” checkbox to filter by your own private Contacts. Clicking the “Clear” button will clear all current filters. You can add, delete or edit contacts using the corresponding list view buttons, as well as email selected contacts or schedule appointments using the Appointment Finder.

Google Import

HoudiniESQ gives you the option to import your Contacts from Google. Simply select the Google Import tab from the Edit Contacts form. Enter information into the following fields:

Contact Group to Import – You can specify which Contact Group from Google you wish to import, or you can leave this field blank to import all your Contacts. We recommend you move the Contacts you wish to import into a custom group on Google. Please note that the Google Import is limited to 250 total Contacts at a time; requests of more than 250 will be ignored by HoudiniESQ as they are simply too large.
User – Enter your Google account user name here. This information is only used for the request and is not stored by HoudiniESQ in any way, shape or form.
Password – Enter your Google account password here. This information is also only used for the import and is not stored by HoudiniESQ in any way, shape or form.
Houdini Contact Type – This drop down menu will allow you to specify a Contact Type for all Contacts imported. For more information on Contact Types, please consult the Types area of Organizational Setup in this document.
Make Imports Private – This checkbox will automatically flag all imported Contacts as Private. Private Contacts will be viewable only by you.

Once you are ready to import your Contacts, click the “Import” button.