Moving a Contact… (im)Possible!

By Travis Austin

April 20, 2011

Autotask, Workflow

When we first started using Email2AT ourselves, it didn't take long to realize that our own internal Autotask account was going to be bombarded with contacts. Every time we received an email from someone that Email2AT couldn't associate to another Account, we'd get a new contact created for our own account.

After a few months and a couple hundred contacts later, we figured there had to be a better way to do this. What we really wanted to do was to just move those contacts to their correct account. Unfortuneately, though, the Autotask web interface doesn't allow contacts to be moved between accounts.

But we all know that these sorts of issues rarely stop us...

After some poking around, we figured out how to move the contacts via the web-services API. We wrote a little tool and have been using it internally for a few months, and we think it's nothing short of a miracle. It's finally time to unveil this little baby!

All user accounts of MSPintegrations now have a link on their left menu for the new Contact Mover. Basically, this tool allows you to choose an account, and then a contact on that account, and move that contact (and optionally any tickets for that contact) to another account. We check a few things to be sure that it won't mess up any opportunities, projects, or other items, and then we move them all for you.

But wait, there's more!

For the first 25 callers (I kid, I kid), we'll throw in a free LiveLink. The LiveLink is installed on the ticket entity within Autotask and will let you choose "Move Contact and Ticket" from that ticket without having to search around.

Now, when you get a new ticket and contact created on your own Autotask account (since the email address didn't match an existing account or contact), you can move the ticket and contact in one quick step.

Here's how it works:

From the MSPintegrations control panel, click Contact Mover from the left menu. You'll need to login with your Autotask credentials (or pick from the pull-down). Then step through the wizard to pick the old account and contact, and then the new account, and we'll do the hard part.

 

To create the LiveLink, visit the Admin pull-down from within Autotask and choose LiveLinks Designer. Create a new LiveLink and set it up as follows:

 

As with most of our free tools, this is released as-is. We expect it to work flawlessly, but we can't guarantee that you won't run into an oddity. If you find something funny, just let us know.

  1. How do you add the mspintegrations.com livelink application? You aren’t already magically listed in our Live Links designer.

    1. Garry,

      LiveLink Applications are defined within the LiveLink Designer in Autotask. There’s a tab for “Applications”.

      Does that help?

      Travis

  2. Travis,
    We are having issue with the exact converse. That is to say when engineering staff reply to a ticket notification from Autotask, that engineer is then created as a contact under the account the ticket was notified from.
    This is causing MASS confusion as engineers send new tickets through email2AT and tickets are being created under the wrong accounts.
    I have tried moving and deleting these Email2AT contacts to no avail. They are continually being re-created upon each reply.
    Is this something inherent in Autotask or can this behavior be curbed?
    Thanks
    Rich W.

    1. Rich,

      You’ve come across a very annoying nuance to way we implemented the use of the Autotask Client Portal for ticket updates. Whenever a ticket is replied to, we need to create a client portal account for the email-sender, and that client portal account has to be associated with the account of the ticket. We do this whether the sender is an Autotask resource or not — and we really shouldn’t.

      For now, it’s a limitation without a workaround. We’re hoping to quash this soon. If you send us an email to our support address, we’ll be sure you get notified when this is taken care of for good.

      Travis

  3. Travis,
    Thank you for your candid update. I have indeed sent a ticket in regarding this issue.
    The product works wonderfully for us within our workflow save for this particular ‘nuance’ as we are calling it. 🙂
    Is there an estimated, projected, or ‘goal’ time frame for this nuance to be ‘quashed’? Our staff would appreciate a time to look forward to – as would I!
    Thanks again.
    Rich W.

  4. Is there a way to store the credentials within the livelink application? Otherwise it would seem I have to share my MSPintegrations login information with everyone who would have/need the ability to move tickets/contacts around, correct? Otherwise, just tested and worked on a new “test” user and ticket. Thanks

    1. Steve – excellent point. In fact, it’s totally not our style to allow you to use another credential in your account.

      I’ll see what we can do to shore this up asap. If you send us a ticket to [email protected], we’ll alert you when it’s done.

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