Professional contacts and organisations

Overview

Professional contacts in Found allow you to track and manage your relationships with referral sources, industry partners, and other professional connections. This feature helps you:

• Distinguish between personal contacts (service users and their families) and professional contacts (referrers and partners)

• Track which professionals refer enquiries to your organisation

• Organise professional contacts by their affiliated organisations

• Manage organisation information efficiently

How to make a contact a professional

Creating a new professional contact

1. Navigate to contacts

   • Go to the Contacts section in Found

   • Click the "Add new contact" button

2. Select contact type

   • At the top of the contact form, you'll see a contact type selector

   • Choose "Professional" (the default is "Personal")

   • Note: You'll only see this option if you have permission to create professional contacts

3. Complete personal details

   • Enter the contact's Title (Mr, Ms, Mrs, Miss, or Other)

   • Enter their First name and Last name

4. Add professional details When you select "Professional" as the contact type, additional fields appear:

   • Job role (required) - Enter the person's professional role (e.g., "Social Worker", "GP", "Care Coordinator")

   • Organisations - Select one or more organisations this professional is affiliated with

     • Use the search box to find existing organisations

     • You can select multiple organisations if the professional works for more than one

5. Add contact methods

   • Enter at least one email address or phone number

   • You can add multiple email addresses and phone numbers if needed

6. Add address (optional)

   • Add the professional's address if relevant

7. Set communication preferences (optional)

   • Configure their privacy and marketing consent preferences

8. Save the contact

   • Click "Add contact" to save

   • If Found finds an existing contact with the same email or phone number, it will alert you to prevent duplicates

How to assign a referral to a professional

When creating or editing an enquiry, you can record which professional contact referred the enquiry to you.

Steps to assign a referral

1. Create or edit an enquiry

   • Navigate to the enquiry form

2. Open marketing attribution section

   • Scroll to the "Marketing attribution" section

   • This is where you record how the enquiry came to you

3. Set contact details

   • Select the contact date and time when the enquiry was made

   • Choose the contact method (e.g., Phone call, Email, Contact form)

4. Select marketing source

   • Choose the marketing source from the dropdown menu

   • Sources are grouped by category

5. Assign the professional contact

   • When you select a marketing source under the "Professional Referral" source group (within the "Referral or recommendation" category), a new field appears: "Professional contact"

   • Use the search box to find and select the professional who made the referral

   • Note: This option only appears for sources in the Professional Referral group specifically — other sources in the same "Referral or recommendation" category (e.g. Personal Referral, Word of Mouth) will not show this field. It also only appears when the professional contacts feature is enabled

6. Automatic referral detection

   • If you've already added a professional contact to the enquiry (in the enquiry's contact section) before reaching this step, Found will try to detect the referral automatically

   • It looks at that professional's organisation and, if it can match it to a "Professional Referral" source, pre-fills both the marketing source and the "Professional contact" field for you

   • An info banner ("We've detected a professional referral...") appears when this happens

   • You can still change the pre-filled source or contact manually if it's not correct

7. Save the enquiry

   • Complete the rest of the enquiry form and save

   • The referral assignment is now recorded

How to set up your organisations

Organisations represent the companies, charities, NHS trusts, local authorities, and other entities that your professional contacts work for.

Creating a new organisation

1. Navigate to organisations

   • Go to Contacts → Organisations in the main navigation

   • Click "Add organisation"

   • A form will open on the right side of your screen

2. Enter organisation details

   • Name (required) - Enter the full name of the organisation

     • Example: "NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board"

   • Category (required) - Select the type of organisation from the dropdown:

     • Business (Local) - Local business or company

     • Business (National) - National or multi-regional business

     • Charity - Charitable organisation

     • Community group - Community or voluntary group

     • Education - School, college, or university

     • Faith - Religious organisation

     • GP - GP surgery or practice

     • Local authority - Council or local government

     • NHS Board/Health Board - NHS regional health board

     • NHS Integrated Care Board - NHS ICB

     • NHS Trust - NHS hospital or community trust

     • Private healthcare - Private healthcare provider

     • Other - Any other type of organisation

3. Save the organisation

   • Click "Add organisation" to save

   • The organisation is now available when creating or editing professional contacts

Editing an organisation

1. Find the organisation in your organisations list and click its name to open it

2. On the Details tab, update the fields you need (name, category, reference, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses)

3. Click "Save" in the top right to save your changes

Note: There is no "Edit" option in the three-dots menu next to an organisation in the list — that menu only offers "Merge" and "Archive" (or "Restore" for an archived organisation). Editing is done directly on the organisation's own page.

How to merge organisations

Sometimes you may have duplicate organisations or need to consolidate organisations. The merge feature allows you to combine two organisations while preserving all professional contact relationships.

When to merge organisations

• Duplicates - You've accidentally created the same organisation twice

• Organisational changes - Two organisations have merged in real life

• Consolidation - You want to simplify your organisation list

Steps to merge organisations

1. Identify your organisations

   • Decide which organisation will be the source (the one that will be removed)

   • Decide which organisation will be the target (the one that will remain)

2. Navigate to organisations

   • Go to Contacts → Organisations

3. Start the merge

   • Find the source organisation (the one you want to remove)

   • Click the three dots menu next to it

   • Select "Merge"

4. Select target organisation

   • A form will appear showing your source organisation at the top

   • Use the dropdown to search for and select the target organisation

   • The source organisation will not appear in the list (you can't merge an organisation with itself)

5. Complete the merge

   • Click "Merge" to proceed

   • All professional contacts from the source organisation will be moved to the target organisation

   • The source organisation will be removed

What happens during a merge

• All professional contacts from the source organisation are transferred to the target organisation

• The source organisation is removed from your organisation list

• Any professional contact that was linked to both organisations will remain linked to the target organisation (duplicates are handled automatically)

• Enquiry history is preserved - any enquiries attributed to professionals from that organisation remain unchanged

Important notes

• Merges cannot be undone, so make sure you select the correct target organisation

• Only professional contacts are linked to organisations (personal contacts are not affected)

Tips and best practices

Managing professional contacts

• Keep job roles up to date - When professionals change roles, update their contact record

• Use clear organisation names - Make it easy to search and find organisations (e.g., "Birmingham City Council" rather than "BCC")

• Review regularly - Periodically check for duplicate organisations and merge them

Organisation categories

Choosing the right category helps with:

• Reporting - Analyse referrals by organisation type

• Filtering - Quickly find organisations of a specific type

Avoiding duplicates

Before creating a new organisation:

• Search existing organisations first

• Check for variations in naming (e.g., "NHS" vs "National Health Service")

• Use the merge feature if you find duplicates after creation