Contact Relationships Overview

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Becca Hancock
  • Updated

The Relationships feature provides a centralized profile to communicate with related contacts. 

Think: Spouses, business partners, father, son, etc. You can start conversations with more than one person and all communication with these related contacts will show on the same profile. Now it's easy to see the whole conversation and keep everyone in the loop.

Tip: Merge two test contacts before going ahead and merging a lot of people into Relationships! 

Note: If you are needing or wanting two people to be separate contacts in a third-party system, keep them separate in Follow Up Boss. If you want to roll up people in a primary relationship instead, use Relationships.

 

How Relationships Work

 

Creating a New Relationship

1) Go to the primary contact record for a person you wish to add a relationship to

2) Click the + under Relationships to add a relationship, including name, email, phone, and relationship type > Save Relationship

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3) Once a new Relationship is saved you can also add address details to that Relationship 

 

Merging Existing Contacts to a Relationship

Mass Actions

1) Go to People > Filter to the desired contacts 

2) Select the contacts you wish to merge 

3) Click Mass Actions > Merge People

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4) Select the main person to merge data to

5) Check Merge people as relationships > Yes, Merge 2 People

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Contact Profile

Another way to merge is to go to the primary contact record for a person you wish to add a relationship to.

1) Go to the main contacts profile

2) Under Relationships, click the Merge Existing Person icon

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3) Search by name, phone, or email for the contact > Select the desired contact > Merge

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 Future Roadmap Considerations

Here are some known items the team is looking into addressing in a future release. As always let us know what you think. 

  • Custom Fields (birthdays and more): Currently an automation can only send an email to the primary contact, not to a related contact.
  • Third-Party Systems (Ylopo, Zapier, Active Pipe, etc.): Our existing person endpoint will return phone and email details of the related contacts under the primary but if a 3rd party system wants to directly work with relationships they will need to utilize the relationships endpoint.
    • Mailchimp syncs only the primary lead's email address.
    • YLOPO uses the lead's email address to link to Stars and if the lead has multiple email addresses, the Stars link will update with the one for the email most recently online.
    • Zapier - relationships can’t be added via Zapier.
    • Active Pipe - syncs only the primary lead's email address.
  • Smart Lists. Relationship contact information is not available to view on smart lists. You can search by Relationship's names though.
  • Unmerge contacts: When you merge contacts to a relationship, we presently do not have a function for unmerging the contacts.

 

FAQs

Is it better to put people on a Relationship or as two separate leads? When should you do one vs the other?

Adding a contact as a Relationship of another contact will keep all communications with both people on the same profile in FUB. It makes it easy to group text, group email, invite both people to appointments, etc. so that your history with those people is kept on a single profile.

For “relating” people like referring agents, lenders, title companies, etc., we recommend using Custom Fields instead of Relationships.

If I list someone as a Relationship, should I also make a separate contact for them?
No, the best practice is to either have that contact listed in a Relationship of the main contact, or keep them separate. This will keep their communications/history tracked in one place and make searching easier.
What happens when you merge to a Relationship?
When you merge to a Relationship, past communication and notes from the merged person will show on the main contact’s page, leaving you a single profile page with both people’s history on it. A merge cannot be undone. The main contact’s page will keep Assigned Agent, Lender, Stage, Source, Appointments, etc and any additional information from the merged contact’s page will be added.
Who should be listed in a Relationship? Can it be the agent I referred the lead to? What about the lender? Or the agent who referred them to me?
It’s best to use Relationships for leads/clients with whom you always communicate together, in the same household, etc. Use a Custom Field to track things like Referring Agent, Lender, Title Company, etc.
How can you split up contacts from Relationship?
To make separate profiles for contacts who are stored in a Relationship, click Add Person and create a new contact for one of the people. After you have added their contact info to the new profile, delete the Relationship from the original contact record. Historical communications will remain on the original contact record, so it’s a good idea to copy the URL of that profile and add it to a Custom Field, Note, or Background on the new profile for easy reference. 
How do we handle Relationship’s Birthdays?
Use Custom Fields to track birthdays.
We will add a way for you to trigger a Birthday Automation for related contacts but currently, you can trigger a Birthday Automation for the primary contact only.
How do Relationships work with my 3rd party integrations?
For integrations that fetch the primary contact’s information, ie MailChimp, Relationship contact information won’t be picked up by the integration. If you use MailChimp heavily, for example, you may want to keep every person as a separate contact in FUB. 
How does email tracking work with relationships?
Follow Up Boss email tracking shows if an email was opened or clicked but is unable to specify which contact, the main contact or the relationship, completed the action. 
How do Relationships work with Zapier or the API?
Right now, Relationships can’t be added via Zapier but it is possible to get or add a Relationship using the API. It is documented here: https://docs.followupboss.com/reference#peoplerelationships. 
What happens when you export a contact with Relationships?
When you select "Export All Columns" while doing an export, Relationships for each contact will be included in the downloaded .csv file. Each relationship will have its set of columns with the available information. We support exporting up to 4 relationships for each contact. Spouses are prioritized and will always be included in the export regardless of how many other relationships are on the contact.
Can you import related contacts?
Yes! You can create Relationships via an import. You can import up to 6 different relationships per contact/row in your .csv file. More info here: Importing Contacts into FUB
Can I see Relationships in my Android app?
Right now, the android app only shows the primary contact. You can search and find the Relationship but the details only show primary contact details. When calling and emailing you can see those emails and phone numbers though.

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