Create a contact quickly
A record-style sheet with one field per row and every attribute directly typeable. Tick Create another and the sheet stays open.
The create sheet is designed around one specific real situation: somebody sitting down after an event with a stack of business cards. Everything about it optimises for typing quickly and repeatedly.
The detail that makes it work is that every attribute is directly typeable — one field per row, no picking a field before entering its value, and controls that match the attribute type so a dropdown is a dropdown rather than a text box you have to spell correctly.
Steps
Open the create sheet from Contacts
The Add button sits with Import and Export in the toolbar — which is a useful reminder that for more than a handful of people, import is the better tool.
The sheet is record-style: one field per row, every attribute directly typeable, no picking a field before entering its value.
Fill the required fields first
They sort to the top and carry a red asterisk, so the shortest path through the form is straight downwards.
Let the controls match the attribute type
A dropdown attribute renders as a select built from its own choices, never a bare text box. That is the schema doing its job, and it is why your data stays reportable.
Set the owner deliberately
Assignment decides whose calling list this person lands in. A contact with no owner is in nobody's list, which is the most common reason a new lead is never called.
Set the source
Where they came from is one of the few things you will never be able to reconstruct later. It is also what tells you which marketing works.
Tick Create another for a stack
The sheet stays open and keeps stage, owner and source — which is the pattern for typing in a pile of cards after an event.
Check it worked
Open the contact you just created and check it appears where you expect: in the right segment, with the right owner, and in that person's calling list if the stage is open.
The parts people get wrong
- For more than a handful of people, import rather than type. The importer handles duplicates and phone formatting far better than you will at 6pm.
- Enter phone numbers with a country code. A number without one will not dial, and fixing them later is tedious.