Working with Folders

Folders allow you to organize your contacts. Each contact can be contained in any number of folders. InterAction also provides marketing lists which are special folders. You can view all the folders and marketing lists that contain a contact from the contact details for the contact.

Each contact is actually stored in only one folder, called the contact’s source folder. When you add a contact to a folder, you create a link from the source folder; InterAction does not make a copy of the contact.

NOTE If you licensed Opportunities, Matters, or Engagements, the applicable folder displays in the Windows client. See your Related Modules guide for more details.

This section contains the following topics:

  • Finding Folders
  • Folder Properties
  • Viewing the Folders That Contain a Contact
  • Adding a Contact to a Folder
  • Removing Contacts from a Folder
  • Changing a Contact's Source Folder

Finding Folders

All folders to which you have read access rights are displayed in the folder list. You can browse through the folders in the folder list just as you browse through folders in Windows Explorer.

The figure below shows how the folders in the folder list are organized.

Folder List

[A] Folder classes appear at the top level...

[B] ...then the folder types/groups that organize the classes...

[C] ...then the folders themselves

[D] When you open a folder, the contacts in the folder appear in the main window.

If you do not know the folder class and folder type/group for the folder you are looking for, it can be difficult to browse for it in the folder list. An alternative way to locate the folder is to use Find Folder.

Find a Folder Using Find Folder

  1. In InterAction Windows Client, choose Folder > Find Folder to display the Find Folder dialog box.

  2. Enter search criteria in the Folder Class, Folder Type, Name, Description, and/or Owner fields.

    TIP You do not have to enter the complete Name or Description for search criteria. For example, you can enter a single letter for Name and InterAction will find all the folders to which you have access that start with the letter.

  3. Choose Search and InterAction displays the folders to which you have access that match the search criteria in the Search Results.

  4. Select the check box for any of the folders you want to open and choose OK. InterAction opens the marked folders.

Folder Properties

You can view information about a folder by selecting the folder in the folder list and choosing Folder > Properties.

You can also view a folder’s properties from the Find Folders dialog box by selecting the folder and choosing the Properties button.

 

Folder Properties Dialog Box

[A] Choose the Security tab to view the access rights for the folder.

See the Configuring InterAction guide for more information about creating folders and security.

Accessing Folder Properties from the Find folders Dialog Box

[A] Select the folder.

[B] Choose Properties.

Viewing the Folders that Contain a Contact

To view the folders that contain a contact, open the contact details for the contact and choose the Folders view.

Folders View

From the Show drop-down list, you can choose which folder classes you want displayed (Administrative Folders, Contact Types, Marketing Lists, Working Lists, or All).

InterAction displays any of the following folders of the selected class to which you have Read and Link Into access and that allow the type of the contact (person or company):

  • Folders in your Favorites
  • Contact Types
  • Marketing Lists using Data Change Management
  • Firm Contacts - People
  • Firm Contacts - Companies

InterAction also displays any other folders of the selected class that contain the contact to which you have Read access. The check boxes in the first column next to each folder indicate whether the folder contains the contact.

Folders that Contain a Contact

[A] Contact’s source folder

[B] Folders that contain the contact

You can sort the Folders view by any of the columns by clicking on the column heading. Click the column heading to change the sort order from ascending to descending (or vice versa). You can click on the name of a user in the Added By column to switch to the contact details for the user (if your system administrator has tied users to contacts, which is required for Web Client users).

Adding a Contact to a Folder

There are several ways you can add a contact to a folder. In order to add a contact to a folder, you must have Read and Link into access rights to the folder. You can do any of the following:

  • From the Folders contact details view in the Windows Client, click in the check box next to the folder name.
  • In the Windows Client, select a contact and choose Contact > Copy. Open the folder you want to add the contact to and choose Contact > Paste Link.
  • In the Windows Client, select a contact and drag the contact to a folder in the folder list. When InterAction selects the correct folder, you can drop the contact into the folder.

TIP You can Copy and Paste or Drag and Drop multiple contacts into folders if you mark the contacts before linking them.

Removing Contacts from a Folder

CAUTION If you remove a contact from its source folder (by choosing Contact > Delete from the Main window), the contact is deleted from the entire system. If you delete a contact from the source folder, you must type Yes to confirm the delete.

In order to remove a contact from a folder, you must have the Delete Contacts access rights to the folder. Therefore, it is possible that you can add a contact to a folder but not be able to remove it. If you remove a contact from a folder, the folder-specific information for the contact is deleted.

To remove a contact from a folder, do any of the following:

  • From the Folders view of the Windows Client, uncheck the check box next to the folder.
  • Select the contact and choose Contact > Delete Link. You can remove several contacts from a folder if you mark contacts before doing this.

When you delete a contact a warning dialog box appears. Choose Yes to delete the contact from the folder.

Changing a Contact's Source Folder

InterAction allows you to change the source folder for a contact by moving the contact. It should be very rare that you need to manually move a contact as all contacts should be sourced in either the Firm Contacts - People folder or the Firm Contacts - Companies folder.

Only contacts sourced in the Firm Contacts - People and Firm Contacts - Companies folders are used when matching up contacts in users’ collections with contacts in the firm collection.

NOTE There are other administrative folders that source contacts as part of initial data load or duplicates processing. Typically, you do not need to be concerned with these other administrative source folders. Users may also source contacts in Working lists.

If you want to add a contact to another folder, you should always link that contact into the other folder. Moving the contact can cause you to lose contact data and may make it unavailable to other users.

Change a Contact's Source Folder

NOTE With few exceptions, contacts should always be sourced in the Firm Contacts - People or Firm Contacts - Companies folders. Sourcing contacts in other folders makes them unavailable when synchronizing user collections with the firm collection. This will introduce duplicate contacts into the system that must be cleaned up later by data stewards.

  1. In InterAction Windows Client, open the folder in which the contact is sourced.
  2. Select the contact and choose Contact > Copy.
  3. Select the folder you want to move the contact to in the Folder List.
  4. Choose Contact > Paste > Paste Move.