Users vs. contacts

EVX Software keeps two kinds of people. A user signs in to EVX Software and works in it: records time, completes tasks, approves expenses. A contact is a person whose details you keep, such as a client's project officer or a laboratory coordinator, and who never signs in. Both appear in the Contacts tab, and the same person can be both.

Side by side

	User	Contact
Signs in to EVX Software	Yes	No
Needs an email address	Yes, to sign in	No
User type and role	Yes: Full access user, Collaborator, or Guest, with a role such as Manager or Executive	No
Permissions on clients and projects	Yes	No
Can be assigned tasks and record time	Yes	No
Linked to clients and projects	Yes	Yes
Appears in the Contacts tab	Under the Users filter	Under Individual contacts
Who adds it	Someone with permission to manage users, usually an administrator	Anyone with permission to manage contacts

When a contact becomes a user

Sometimes a person you only kept details for needs to sign in, such as a sub-consultant who records time on your projects or a client reviewer. Open the contact and click Create user from person in the Actions panel. The user keeps the contact's details, and an administrator sets the user type, role, and permissions.

To add a user who is not yet a contact, an administrator uses Contacts › New › User. See Users.

Example: a sub-consultant on a cultural resources survey

A firm hires a sub-consultant archaeologist for a cultural resources survey. At first, she is a contact linked to her company and the project, so the team has her phone number and email. When she starts recording her hours on the project's tasks, an administrator opens her contact, clicks Create user from person, and gives her the user type and role that fit her work, with access to that project only.

What you can do next

1. Contacts and companies to add and manage contacts.
2. Users for how administrators add and set up users.
3. User roles for what each user type and role can do.