Community Relationships (CRM)

Manage a contact database and track interactions with individuals and communities in PEARS.

The Community Relationships module in PEARS provides a contact relationship management (CRM) system for maintaining a database of individuals you work with. Each contact record stores personal details, communication preferences, demographics, and social media information. You can also log interactions to track the communications and engagements you have with your contacts over time.

Contacts can be linked to the partners they work for, and every contact carries its own permissions controlling who can see its details.

Getting Started

To access Community Relationships, hover over the Engage menu in the top navigation bar and click Community Relationships. The contacts list displays all of your records with options to search, filter, sort, and create new entries.

The search bar searches across contact names, email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses.

From the list you can click Add Contact to create a record, or Add Interaction to log an engagement without opening a contact first. Selecting rows changes those buttons to act on the selection — Add Interaction (2) pre-fills the chosen contacts, and Merge CRM Contacts appears for users with that permission.

Screenshot: The Community Relationships list with the Export, Add Interaction and Add Contact buttons, the search box and filter bar, and the contacts table with Name, Primary Email, Phone and Location columns

Workflow

Building and managing your contact database involves several key tasks:

1

Add a Contact

Create a new person record with their name, organization, linked partners, phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing address.

Add a Contact

2

Contact Permissions

Choose who can see the contact's details, share it with people or units, and respond to access requests.

Contact Permissions

3

Contact Demographics

Enter demographic information for a contact including gender, age, race, and ethnicity.

Contact Demographics

4

Communication Preferences

Set a contact's preferred communication methods and add their social media profiles.

Communication Preferences

5

Create an Interaction

Log an interaction to record a communication event with one or more contacts.

Create an Interaction

6

Merge Contacts

Combine duplicate contact records into a single person, preserving all associated data.

Merge Contacts

Additional Actions

• AI Entry — Draft a contact or an interaction by dictating or typing a plain-language description.

• Export — Download contacts and interactions as an Excel workbook.

TIP: Contacts created in the CRM module can be linked to interactions, partners, program activity registrations, and other records throughout PEARS.

NOTE: Contacts no longer carry a Unit field, and the old Site field has been replaced by a free-text Organization field. Existing site names were carried into Organization automatically.