Associating People with Organizations

When you have a person who represents a company and you need a record of both the contact person and the company, then you want to associate people with organizations, and with a specific office if the organization has multiple offices. Associating insurance adjusters and agents and the companies they represent is especially important, but any corporate customers, vendors, sub-contractors, or individuals who represent companies you deal with is equally as important to associate correctly.

Associating the person with the organization lets you quickly identify and get to either set of information from the other. For example, suppose you buy cleaning supplies from Bywater Chemical Company, and suppose Fred Bolger is the person you regularly talk to there. You would want to enter both the company (that is, the organization) and the person, and then associate them. That way, if Fred Bolger calls, you can look up the person to see what company he’s calling from, or if you want to order cleaning supplies and have forgotten Fred’s name, you can look up the company and find him that way.

You can associate a person with an organization when you are adding a person.

Elsewhere, we explain how to associate people and organizations starting from the organization; this page explains how to associate people and organizations starting with the person. The end result is the same; which way you do it is just a matter of preference. To associate a person with an organization after the person already exists:

1. At the top of the screen, click the People tab and click on +Person. Start filling out the fields. If you try to add someone that is already in the database who has the same category, Chronicle will prompt you and ask if this is a duplicate person. (There are times when you will add the same person but who plays a different role with your company. Example: You can enter an insurance agent, first with the role of agent, and second with the role of customer.) 
   
2. Once you select the category, a new field will open up so you can select which organization to associate them too. (The category of customer does not prompt this as we do not need to associate them to their place of work.)
3.  If the organization is already in Chronicle: Type the initial letters of the organization’s name in the Search entry. If you haven’t added the organization yet: Click the Add Organization button. You add an organization here just as you would from the organization list.
4. Click the organization in the list and then click Next to continue.
5. Continue to fill out the new person information and click Save.