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Storing contact information
FirstClass lets you store personal contact information, such as the email address, phone number, and street address of a friend. Contacts provide a quick way to address messages to both people who aren't registered on your server and people who are, but whom you address, say, by nickname.
You can also create mail lists.
 TipsWe recommend that you create a conference instead of a mail list, to reduce Mailbox clutter, if all recipients would have access to your conference.
If you do have a mail list, and want to extract all the names in that mail list to plain text, select the mail list (don't open it) and choose Message > Summarize Selected.
Contacts and mail lists can be in your Contacts folder, where only you will see them, or in public contact databases, where others can see and contribute to them. You, your administrator, and other users can create contact databases and share them with other users. You can also share a contact by attaching it to a message.
When you add contacts and mail lists, they are added to your personal view of the Directory. In the case of a contact database, you must place a link to it in your Contacts folder, or copy entries from it to your Contacts folder, to see the contact database entries in your view of the Directory.
 ExceptionContacts aren't added to the Directory if your administrator didn't give you access to the contact management feature. If you don't have the contact management feature, you can still create contacts purely for reference.
Your Contacts folder
All FirstClass users have personal Contacts folders on their Desktops. Your Contacts folder contains contacts and mail lists that you have added for your own use.
To open your Contacts folder from a window other than your Desktop, choose File > Open > Contacts.
Viewing contact information
Viewing contact databases
There are several ways you can control how you view contact information in your Contacts folder and other contact databases.
If you show the contacts in index card view, you will have immediate access to standard information, such as phone numbers, so that you can call someone without having to open their contact form. You can click this information twice to make it editable, then update it right in this view.
In index card view, your contacts are automatically color coded by category, if you assigned categories to them.
Controlling how you view contact information
FirstClass supplies several versions of the form you use to add and store contacts. For example, if you are used to an Outlook or Palm personal address form, there are FirstClass forms that have a similar layout.
Choose the form you want to use in your Contacts folder, and as the default form in any contact databases that you create, in your preferences. Choose the form you want to use for a specific contact database in that contact database's permissions.
Navigating to a particular name
To go to the first name that starts with a particular letter, or starts with a number, click the appropriate button at the right of the contact database window.
If there are two letters combined on a button, you can go to the first name that starts with the second letter by clicking the button twice.
Opening contacts' web pages
 Only applicable if you use a contact form that includes website fields.If you supplied company/personal website URLs when you created a contact, you can go to the contact's web page directly from the contact form.
To do this, choose Open Link from the context menu at the field that contains the URL.
Viewing maps for contacts' addresses
If you supplied a business or personal mailing address when you created a contact, you can go to the map web page for that address directly from the contact form.
To do this, click Map.
You can change the map website that FirstClass uses in your preferences.
Sorting your contacts
In addition to sorting your contacts by clicking the applicable column heading in list view, you can also also sort them by:
• last name, then first name (all contacts with the same last name are grouped, then sorted by first name)
• first name, then last name
• category name, then last name (this is useful if you assigned categories to your contacts when you created them)
• company name, then last name.
To sort contacts in these ways, click the Quick Sort dropdown arrow, then choose the sort you want. Clicking the button itself sorts your contacts by last name, then first name.
Grouping your contacts
You can create contact databases within your Contacts folder, or another contact database, to organize contact information.
For example, you can create a contact database for all contacts involved with a special project, then move or copy entries into this contact database. You can share this contact database just as you would any other contact database.
Adding contacts
Adding contacts to your Contacts folder
1 Choose File > New > New Contact.
ShortcutIf the address you want is in a FirstClass message or document, select the address, then choose Collaborate > Add to Contacts Folder. This prefills some of the contact information.
2 Update the New Contact form.
Adding contacts to contact databases
1 Open the contact database.
2 Choose File > New > New Contact.
3 Update the New Contact form.
Creating mail lists
To create a mail list:
1 Choose File > New > New Mail List.
If you want to create the mail list in a public contact database, open the contact database first.
2 Update the Mail List form.
You can add multiple members by copying and pasting their contact information, separated by tabs or semicolons, just as you add multiple message recipients at once.
Members will be sorted automatically by first name when you save the mail list.
Importing and exporting contact information
You can import contact information from FirstClass and other applications, such as Outlook Express, or export your contacts from FirstClass.
In both cases, the transfer is done using vCard (.vcf file) or Excel (.csv file) format. vCard is a common format for transporting contact information between applications. Excel format consists of comma, tab, or semicolon delimited data.
Importing contacts using vCard format
To import vCard contact information into FirstClass:
1 Export the data from the other application as a .vcf file.
2 Log into FirstClass.
3 Choose File > Import > Import Contacts.
If you want to import to a public contact database, open the contact database first. Otherwise, the contacts are added to your Contacts folder.
4 Select the .vcf file.
To import a .vcf file that is attached to a message, select it, then choose Collaborate > Add to Contacts Folder. The contacts are added to your Contacts folder.
Importing contacts using Excel format
To import Excel contact information into FirstClass:
1 Prepare the data for importing.
Open the address book in the other application, then save the fields you want to export as a comma, tab, or semicolon delimited text file with an extension of .csv. If the other application can't save the data in this format, try importing the data into a spreadsheet program and saving it from there.
2 Log into FirstClass.
3 Choose File > Import > Import Contacts.
If you want to import to a public contact database, open the contact database first. Otherwise, the contacts are added to your Contacts folder.
4 Select the .csv file.
FirstClass displays the fields in the file, and the FirstClass fields to which they will map.
5 Change field mappings, if required, by choosing new FirstClass fields from the dropdown fields.
To import a .csv file that is attached to a message, select it, then choose Collaborate > Add to Contacts Folder. The contacts are added to your Contacts folder.
Exporting contact information
To export contact information from FirstClass:
1 Open the Contacts folder or a contact database.
If you want to export only certain contacts, select them.
2 Choose File > Export.
3 Update the Export Contacts form.
4 Select the location where you want the file to be saved.
5 Rename the file, if desired.
Creating contact databases
You can create contact databases just as your administrator does. If you have trouble getting your contact databases to work as you expect, contact your administrator.
To create a contact database:
1 Open the container where you want the contact database.
2 Choose File > New > New Contact Database.
The new contact database opens.
3 Customize the contact database view, if desired.
4 Close the contact database.
The contact database is created with the default name selected.
5 Type the name you want to give your contact database and press Enter/Return.
After your contact database has been created, you can update its properties on the Info form, if desired.
6 Set contact database permissions.
Setting contact database permissions
To specify the permissions for your contact database:
1 Select or open the contact database.
2 Choose Collaborate > Permissions.
3 Update the Permissions form.
Your changes are saved automatically when you close this form.
TipIf you created the contact database in an area that others can't access, you must make users members before they can use this contact database.
Giving users access to your contact databases
You can make your contact database available to users by:
• creating the contact database in a container to which they have access
or
• making them members of your contact database.
To make a user a member of your contact database:
1 Select your contact database.
2 Choose Members from the context menu.
If the contact database Permissions form is still open, you can click Members instead.
3 Click Add Member.
ShortcutWith the members list open, you can open a list of users, such as the Directory, select users, and drag them to the members list. You can also select a plain text list of user names (one per line) and drag them.
4 Select the user and click Add.
The user is notified of this membership by email, and your contact database is added to their Contacts folder.
To see a selected member's profile, click Profile.
To remove a selected member, click Remove Member.
TipYou can click the column headings in the members list to sort the list, just as you can in other lists. This lets you display the member names in alphabetical order.
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