Contacts

Trimble Unity Construct's Contacts module provides a centralized directory of contacts for all of your projects. By storing the information in Trimble Unity Construct, you are able to report on and view at a glance all of your cost and bidding information for each company and contact. You can also use this information with the Mail Merge feature to automatically merge existing contacts into your defined contract or invoice templates.

The Contacts module ties in with both the Cost and Bidding modules. Each commitment and cost is tied to a company stored in your contacts. In the Bidding module, each bidder is a contact.

The following concepts are used within Trimble Unity Construct:

  • Project: Each real world project that your organization is participating in must be associated with a project in Trimble Unity Construct. Your Project Administrator or Manager will be able to add you as a member of a project in Trimble Unity Construct if you are working on it.
  • Contact: A Trimble Unity Construct contact is a record of contact information (such as phone number, fax, email address, street address, etc.) associated with a Trimble Unity Construct Company. Contacts can be stored solely as a reference or associated with Bids in the bidding module.
  • Company: A Trimble Unity Construct company is a record of contact information (such as phone number, fax, email address, street address, etc.) for a company. There can be more than one contact associated with a company but only one company can be associated with a contact. Companies can be stored solely as a reference or associated with commitments, costs or bids in the Cost and Bidding modules.
  • Groups: Setting up a group of people(users and contacts) allows you to consistently send communication to the same collection of people when needed. These groups can be created for personal use or shared with all users.

Access the Contacts Module

Trimble Unity Construct supports the different team members that are involved in any project. Based on their job function, users may be able to view and/ or edit/ enter Contacts.

The Site Administrator controls who has access to view and edit information in the Contacts Module.

  1. From the top navigation tabs, click the Contacts tab.
    The Contacts tab is displayed with a list of available contacts.

  2. To view companies, click the Companies tab.

  3. To view groups of contacts, click the Groups tab.

Search/ Lookup Companies and Contacts

To search and find companies and contacts you can either search through the pages in your view(s) or click the Lookup button.

  1. Go to Contacts.
  2. Click the Contacts tab or Companies tab. The views display a list of all the contacts or companies.
  3. Click the down arrow to the right of the page drop-down list or click the First, Prev, Next and Last links.
    • The First link will direct you to the first page in the view.
    • The Prev link will direct you to the previous page.
    • The Next link will direct you to the next page.
    • The Last link will direct you to the last page in the view.
  4. Click the name of a contact or company to view the details. This allows you to continue to filter or click different contacts and not have to close the lookup window.

Import Companies or Contacts

If you have been granted the permission, you can import companies or contacts directly into the Contacts module from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.xls or .xlsx format).

To see this import functionality on your Project Contacts screen, this feature must be enabled. Consult your account administrator for details.

  • It is recommended that you name each of the column headers in your import file to the same field name for the company or contact in Trimble Unity Construct. By doing this, the fields will map automatically and save you time on Step 2 of the Import Wizard.
  • If you have contact information you wish to import that does not have a company field, you can create that field as a custom field. Custom field values can also be included on the import file.

    For check box type fields, use the following values in the Import Excel file:

    • Check box On = 1, Yes, or Y
    • Check box Off = 0, No or N
    • No change = blank

  • If your import file has both company and contact information, choose the radio button where each row is a contact. When the import occurs, if the company already exists it on the list it will only import it once.
  • During the Import process, you will need to specify whether you wish to do a new import of contacts/ companies or an update import that updates any existing duplicate records.

There are two types of import processes:

  • New Import: To perform a new import of contacts/ companies, leave the Update Duplicates check box unchecked in the How is your import file organized? field.
    • Company: The import process checks the company numbers from the import file against the existing records in Trimble Unity Construct. If the number does not exist, then a new company record will be created. Otherwise it will be returned as a duplicate and fail to be included in the import.
    • Contact: The import process checks the company number, contact first and last name to determine whether the contact already exists.
  • Update Import: To perform an update import, select the Update Duplicates check box in the How is your import file organized? field.
    • Company: For records where the company number matches, the import process updates the existing record in Trimble Unity Construct based on field differences, additions and/ or deletions in the import file. If the company number is not found, the process will also verify the company name for matches.

      The company number cannot be updated through the import.

    • Contact: For records where the company number, first name and last name match, the import process updates the existing record in Trimble Unity Construct based on field differences, additions and/ or deletions in the import file.

      The contact’s company number, first name and last name cannot be updated through the import.

To import companies or contacts

  1. Go to Contacts.
  2. Click Import Contacts. The Import Contacts - Select Import File page is displayed with a 3-step wizard.
  3. Complete Step 1 of the Import Wizard - select an import file:
    1. In the How is your import file organized? field, select the appropriate radio button to specify whether each row in your import file is a Company or a Contact.

      If you choose the Contact option, you will have to perform field mapping selections for both companies and contacts in the next step.

    2. Select the Update duplicates check box to import and update any duplicate or existing records in Trimble Unity Construct with company or contact name matches.
    3. In the Choose Your Import File section, click Choose File to locate your import file.
    4. Navigate to the folder where the file is located on your local computer or network. Select the file and click Open. The import file is now attached.
    5. Click Next. The Import Contacts - Field Mappings page is displayed.

  4. Complete Step 2 of the Import Wizard - specify the field mappings:
    1. For each standard and custom field in Trimble Unity Construct, click the drop-down arrow and select the column name from the import file to map them to the import file fields.
    2. Once all fields are mapped correctly, click Next. The Import Contacts - Review page is displayed along with a preview of one of the imported records.
  5. Complete Step 3 of the Import Wizard - review the import file:
    1. Validate that the field mapping performed in Step 2 of the Import Wizard is correct.

      If there are any problems with your import file that caused certain rows not to import, you will see a count of the rows with issues on the Exceptions tab. Click the Exceptions tab to see the issue and the reason why that row was not imported. It is recommended that you cancel the import if your import file has exceptions to correct the exceptions. Once you cancel the import, correct the rows on the import files that had the errors and re-import the file.

    2. Click Import. The Import Contacts - Review page is displayed with a import confirmation message.
  6. Click Finish to complete the import.

Export Companies or Contacts

If granted the permission, you can export companies or contacts directly from the Contacts module to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.xls format).

Custom field values can also be included in the export file.

To export companies to MS Excel

  1. Go to Contacts.
  2. Click the Companies tab or Contacts tab.
  3. Click the MS Excel iconExport to MS Excel icon. The MS Excel Spreadsheet will be downloaded to your computer.

    To export a list of companies or contacts belonging to a specific project, select a project from the All Projects drop-down box first. If you wish to export the details of only few companies or contacts from this list, you can narrow down the list by clicking the check boxes beside the desired companies or contacts and then clicking the MS Excel iconExport to MS Excel icon.