Contact Groups

What it is

A contact group is a saved list of people, kept under a name you choose — for example Miami customers, Spring repair customers, or VIPs.

Everyone in a group comes from your Clients list. The left-hand menu calls those people Clients; the group screens call them contacts. They are the same list of people.

There are two kinds of group, and you choose which when you create it:

When to use it

• You want a slice of your customer base kept under one name. Everyone in a city, everyone who ever booked a particular service type, everyone from one advertising source.
• You want a headcount before you commit to anything. The Preview button tells you how many people match your conditions without saving a group at all — useful for sizing a campaign or a call-round.
• You want a stable list that will not drift. A static group is a snapshot: it does not change when a customer’s details change.
• You want a list that follows a rule. A dynamic group re-reads its conditions every time you press Sync, so it can be refreshed before each use.

This is not the page for routing phone calls. Grouping your phone numbers so the right greeting answers them is a different feature — see Call Groups. The two have similar names and nothing else in common.

Before you start

• You need permission. Your role must have either Marketing or Conversations switched on. An owner sets that under Settings›People›Team Roles, in the Communication block. If you have neither, Joby quietly sends you to another page instead of opening Contact Groups — you will not see an error message.
• You need to know how to open the page. Contact Groups does not have its own item in the left-hand menu today. Open it by typing your normal Joby web address with /contact-groups on the end — for example https://app.joby.io/contact-groups. Bookmark it; you will come back.
• You need clients already saved. Group members are pulled from your Clients list only. A lead that was never turned into a client cannot be added. Add people from the left-hand menu at Clients›New Client, or see Clients.
• If you plan to use conditions, tidy the lists they read first. Service types, statuses, sources and areas come from Settings›Pipeline›Service Types, Settings›Pipeline›Lead Statuses, Settings›Pipeline›Ad Sources and Settings›Business›Service Areas. Only entries switched on in those pages appear in the condition menus.

Step-by-step

Create a static group (you pick the people)

1. Open /contact-groups and click New Group in the top right. The Create New Group window opens.
2. Type a Group Name. This is the only required field — the window will tell you “Please enter a group name” if you leave it blank.
3. Add a Description if it helps. It shows under the name in the table and is included when you search groups.
4. Leave the Active switch on unless you are setting the group up ahead of time.
5. Under Group Type, leave the Static tab selected.
6. Click Create Group. You will see “Group created successfully”.
7. Back on the table, click the group name to open it, then click Add Members.
8. In Add Members to Group, use Search contacts... to find people by first name, last name, email or phone number. Tick each person you want, or use Select all to take everyone currently listed.
9. Click Add … Member(s). The window closes and the member list refreshes.

Create a dynamic group (conditions pick the people)

1. Click New Group, fill in the Group Name and optional Description as above.
2. Under Group Type, click the Dynamic tab.
3. Click Add Filter. Each condition is built left to right: pick a category (Contact or Lead), pick a field, pick how to compare it, then enter or choose a value.
4. Add more conditions with Add Filter. Use the bin icon on the right of a row to remove one.
5. Click Preview. The line next to it changes from “Preview matching contacts” to “… contacts match these filters”. If a condition is half-finished you will be told to complete it first.
6. Click Create Group.
7. Open the group and click Sync. This is the step people miss. Creating the group saves the conditions; pressing Sync is what actually fills the member list. You will see “Group synced successfully”.

How to check it worked

1. Read the row. On the Contact Groups table your group should show the right Type badge, a Members count above zero, and Active under Status.
2. Open the group. Click its name. The Total Members tile at the top should show the same number as the table.
3. Spot-check the people. The member table lists Name, Email, Phone, Location and the Added date. Pick two or three customers you know should be there and check they are.
4. Check the count against the preview. For a dynamic group, the number after a fresh Sync should match what Preview told you in the settings window. If it does not, one of your conditions is being ignored — see Building conditions.
5. If the count is zero: a static group needs Add Members; a dynamic group needs Sync Now. Both buttons are offered on the empty panel inside the group.

Common mistakes

• Expecting a dynamic group to keep itself up to date. The note in the settings window says the list updates on its own. In practice nothing changes until someone opens the group and presses Sync. Treat Sync as a manual step you do before every use.
• Pressing Sync on a dynamic group that has no conditions. That empties the group. Add at least one condition first.
• Trying to hand-pick people in a dynamic group. There is no Add Members button on a dynamic group, and Sync throws away the whole member list and rebuilds it, so anything added another way disappears. If you need to hand-pick, use a static group.
• Relying on the Match OR switch. When you have two or more conditions a Match AND button appears and you can click it to read OR. The setting is saved with the group, but previews and syncs currently treat every condition as AND — all of them must be true. Build your group as if OR does not exist.
• Using unsupported comparisons on Lead conditions. On a Lead condition only Equals and Is any of are actually applied (plus Contains on Lead City and Lead State). Anything else is ignored, and Lead Zip Code is ignored altogether — which makes the group come back far bigger than you expected. Contact conditions support every comparison in the menu.
• Typing in Search members and expecting the list to shrink. The box on the group page does not narrow the member table yet. Use the page numbers at the bottom instead — members are shown 50 at a time.
• Looking for the group in Bulk SMS. It will not be there. Bulk SMS builds its recipient list from numbers you paste in or a spreadsheet file you upload — see Bulk SMS.
• Trying to rename a group from inside it. The group page only adds and removes people. Name, description, Active and the group type all live behind the pencil icon on the Contact Groups table.
• Worrying that Delete removes your customers. The warning says it will “remove all group members” — that means the membership list, not the people. Your customers stay in Clients exactly as they were.
• Assuming the Add Members window shows everyone. It lists up to 100 contacts at a time and hides anyone already in the group. Type in Search contacts... to reach the rest.