Managing business contacts efficiently is fundamental to sustaining long-term growth, improving sales performance, and maintaining high-quality customer relationships. As companies scale, spreadsheets and disparate tools become inefficient, leading to lost information, miscommunication, and missed opportunities. Dolibarr ERP/CRM, an open-source solution, provides a powerful and integrated system to centralize all your customer and prospect data in one place.

This article provides a comprehensive and detailed guide on how to centralize contacts within Dolibarr, covering everything from module setup to best practices for segmentation, automation, data protection, and analytics. Whether you're new to Dolibarr or looking to improve your current CRM strategy, this guide will walk you through the critical steps needed to consolidate your contact database effectively.

1. Why Centralizing Contacts is Essential

Centralizing your contacts is not just about storing names and emails. It's about building a complete 360-degree view of each interaction, decision, purchase, and communication linked to every client or prospect. Key benefits include:

• Enhanced customer service through accessible history

• Improved sales performance via segmentation and follow-ups

• Better collaboration between departments

• Streamlined marketing campaigns

• Compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations

• Time savings and data integrity

Dolibarr, with its modular architecture, allows you to manage all this in a single, cohesive system.

2. Setting Up Dolibarr for Contact Management

To begin centralizing contacts, you must first activate the relevant modules in Dolibarr:

• Third Parties (Companies/Individuals): To store customers, prospects, and suppliers.

• Contacts/Addresses: To associate individual people to third parties.

• Prospects: To manage leads before they become clients.

• Agenda: To track meetings and communication history.

• Email and Notification Modules: For contact-based communications.

Navigate to Home > Setup > Modules and enable the modules mentioned above.

3. Understanding the Difference Between Third Parties and Contacts

Dolibarr uses a layered structure:

• Third Party: This represents a company or an individual. It contains overall information like name, type (customer, prospect, supplier), VAT number, payment terms, etc.

• Contact/Address: These are the people associated with that third party (e.g., John Doe at ACME Ltd.). Each contact can have roles (e.g., decision maker, accountant) and their own email, phone, and login information.

This separation allows you to manage B2B and B2C interactions with flexibility.

4. Creating and Importing Contacts

To manually create a new contact:

• Go to Third Parties > New Third Party

• Fill in the company or individual’s details

• After saving, go to the contact tab to add people associated with this third party

Dolibarr also supports bulk imports:

• Go to Tools > Import

• Use the templates provided to upload third parties and contact data

• Map the fields correctly (e.g., name, email, phone, company link)

For ongoing data entry, consider training your team on data consistency (e.g., avoiding duplicates, using standard formats).

5. Classifying and Segmenting Contacts

Segmentation is critical for marketing and sales efficiency. Dolibarr allows tagging and categorization in multiple ways:

• Customer/Prospect/Supplier status

• Third Party Type: Company or Individual

• Customer Category: e.g., Retail, Wholesale, Enterprise

• Sales Regions or Territories

• Custom Tags or Extra Fields

Set these via Setup > Dictionaries or directly on the contact or third party record.

With proper segmentation, you can create targeted campaigns, assign leads by region, or produce region-specific reports.

6. Centralizing Interaction History

One of the key features of Dolibarr is its agenda and event tracking:

• Log phone calls, meetings, emails, and notes

• Attach documents to contacts and third parties

• Use linked objects to view orders, proposals, invoices associated with a contact

This historical data ensures that anyone interacting with the client (support, sales, admin) can view the full context.

7. Using the Agenda and Notifications

• The Agenda module helps log and visualize upcoming or past events

• Assign tasks to team members linked to contacts

• Set reminders or use email notifications

• Synchronize with external calendars using CalDAV

The more detailed your logs, the better your analysis and planning.

8. Automation and Triggers

Dolibarr supports action hooks and automation to:

• Send automatic emails after a contact is created

• Trigger tasks when a prospect becomes a customer

• Update related fields automatically

These automations reduce human error and ensure timely follow-ups.

For advanced automation, consider using third-party modules or integrating with external tools via the REST API.

9. Integrating Forms and Lead Capture

To centralize new leads:

• Use Dolibarr’s public web forms

• Embed external forms (Typeform, Google Forms) and send data via API

• Automatically create a prospect third party with associated contact

This ensures no lead gets lost and that data flows directly into your CRM.

10. Secure Access and Role Management

Managing access rights is critical when centralizing data. Dolibarr allows role-based access control:

• Assign users to specific groups (e.g., sales, support, finance)

• Limit visibility based on region, contact type, or module

• Log user actions for accountability

Go to Setup > Users & Groups to configure permissions carefully.

11. GDPR and Data Protection Considerations

When storing personal data, especially in the EU, compliance is essential:

• Ensure explicit consent is collected for marketing communications

• Store consent logs or checkbox records (custom fields)

• Enable anonymization tools when deleting contacts

• Define data retention policies

Dolibarr includes built-in tools and the possibility of custom modules for privacy compliance.

12. Dashboards and Reporting

Centralized data enables powerful reporting:

• Number of prospects by source

• Conversion rates by sales rep

• Time to conversion

• Customer activity heatmaps

Use Dolibarr’s built-in statistics or connect to BI tools via API.

13. Synchronization with Email and Communication Tools

Dolibarr can connect with email servers to:

• Send bulk emails to contact lists

• Store sent messages in contact history

• Create mail merge campaigns

• Track delivery, opens, and clicks (with third-party plugins)

Consider using SMTP configuration or integrating tools like Mailchimp or Sendinblue.

14. Extending Contact Management with Modules

Useful modules include:

• Emailing Pro: Advanced segmentation and mail merge

• Newsletter: Subscription lists and campaigns

• Lead Management: Pipeline and funnel view for prospects

• LDAP or SSO Integration: For corporate contact syncing

Browse Dolistore for options or work with developers to tailor features.

15. Best Practices for Contact Centralization

• Conduct regular deduplication audits

• Encourage standardized data entry (via dropdowns, validation rules)

• Define ownership of contacts (who can edit, assign, delete)

• Maintain backup and recovery plans

• Train users on privacy compliance and system updates

Conclusion

Dolibarr provides a powerful yet flexible CRM system to centralize all your customer and prospect contact information. By leveraging its modular design, automation capabilities, and integration potential, businesses can ensure that their contact data is always up-to-date, accessible, and actionable.

Centralizing contacts in Dolibarr is not just about improving efficiency—it’s about laying the foundation for scalable, personalized, and compliant customer engagement. Whether you're just starting out or refining your digital transformation, mastering contact centralization with Dolibarr can give your organization a serious competitive edge.