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Thirdlane

External Contacts

External Contacts is your organization’s shared address book of people outside the phone system - customers, partners, vendors, and anyone else who is not a colleague with an extension. It exists so everyone dials the same number for the same company, and so an incoming call from a known number arrives with a name on it instead of just digits.

This list is shared by the whole organization, unlike Personal Contacts, which only you see. Whether you can add or change entries here depends on the permissions your administrator gave you; many organizations keep the shared list read-only for most users and maintain it centrally.

What is stored

Each entry holds a first and last name, the company and department the person belongs to, an email address, and their numbers: office, mobile, home, other, and an external extension where the company runs its own phone system.

Finding and using a contact

Search the list by name, company, or number, then dial from the entry rather than retyping the number. The same contacts appear when you search the Company Directory and in Thirdlane Connect, so you can look someone up from whichever application you are already in.

Because these entries are matched against the caller ID of incoming calls, a call from a number stored here is announced with the contact’s name.

Best practices

  • Store numbers in full international form (for example +1 415 555 0142) so caller ID matching recognizes the same number however it arrives.
  • Put a shared customer or supplier here, not in your personal contacts, so a colleague covering for you can find them.
  • Fill in the company field even for a single contact - it is what makes the list searchable by organization later.