Deactivate old contacts (without deleting)

Deactivate old contacts (without deleting)

Hello there,

under this post I asked if there is a possibility to deactivate contacts.I received the answer that currently there is no possibility at all. So now I would like to share this idea with you.

If contacts leave the company, or are no longer relevant for new tickets due to other circumstances, it would be good to have a way to mark them accordingly. Based on this marking, these contact persons could then be excluded from a manual selection, so they are simply filtered out in the drop-down fields. This would have the advantage that existing or old tickets, which are linked to the old contacts, do not have to be changed or removed. After all, the tickets may contain important information or may still need to be consulted afterwards for tracing actions, etc. It makes sense that these tickets are still linked to the contacts and thus also to the corresponding companies.

Currently, you have to come up with ugly workarounds if you want to maintain the connections. For example, you can create one dummy contact per company. Tickets assigned to contacts of the company that have become obsolete are then all assigned to the dummy contact and after that the obsolete contacts are remove.

A native feature as described would have the following advantages:

Efficient Contact Management: The feature would provides a structured and efficient way to manage contacts within the system. Users can easily mark contacts that are no longer relevant or have left the company, streamlining the contact database.

Improved User Experience: By excluding disabled contacts from manual selection and drop-down fields, the resulting data becomes more valid. This simplifies the process of selecting contacts and prevents incorrect data from being entered manually in the first place.

Preservation of Historical Data: Deactivating contacts instead of deleting them ensures that historical data and associations with existing or old tickets are preserved. This is crucial for maintaining a comprehensive record of interactions and information related to those contacts.

Tracing and Reference: The ability to keep old tickets linked to deactivated contacts allows users to refer back to them for tracing actions, auditing, or historical reference. This ensures that important information is readily accessible, even if the contact is no longer active.

Company Continuity: Deactivating a contact while keeping them linked to their corresponding company ensures that the organizational structure remains intact. This is particularly important for tracking interactions and maintaining the context of past communications within the company.

Elimination of Workarounds: The feature would eliminate the need for users to come up with cumbersome workarounds, such as creating dummy contacts, to maintain connections. This not only saves time but also reduces the risk of errors or data inconsistencies.

Compliance and Data Integrity: Deactivating contacts in a systematic manner can help ensure compliance with data protection regulations by demonstrating that inactive or obsolete contacts are appropriately managed and not used for active communication or marketing purposes.

Reuse of data: The feature allows deactivated contacts to be reactivated as needed. This is extremely useful when circumstances change and a previously irrelevant contact needs to be brought back into the work process. Without this feature, these contacts would have to be created again, which will lead to redundancies and data inconsistencies. Without the ability to deactivate and reactivate contacts, there is a risk that data will be lost when contacts are added again. This can cause confusion and make historical information inaccessible. You can't restore the connection afterwards, even if you save the original ID of the original contact person in the ticket.

I hope you also see the need for such an actual core feature. I am happy about your upvote!

Regards,
Sven



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