# Contacts overview

**Category:** [Contacts](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/contacts-1)
**Updated:** 2026-08-19

## What the Contacts app does

Contacts is a **unified directory of every person** your organization works with. Instead of looking people up app by app, Contacts automatically gathers records from across the suite and merges them into a single list.
## Where contacts come from

The directory pulls people from each app where they appear:

- **CRM** — sales and relationship contacts
- **Accounting** — active billing and vendor contacts
- **Community** — active members of your communities
- **Projects** — users who belong to at least one project
- **Support** — people who have contacted your help desk
- **Surveys** — survey respondents with an email
- **CCMS** — customer portal members

## Automatic deduplication

When the same person exists in several apps, Contacts matches them by email (case-insensitive) and shows a single row. Each app the person appears in is marked with a **source badge**, so you can see at a glance whether someone is a CRM contact, a community member, a support requester, or all three.
## What you can do

- Search and filter the directory — see [Search and filter your contacts](search-and-filter-contacts)
- Open a unified profile that links every source record — see [View a unified contact profile](view-a-unified-contact-profile)
- Capture extra data with custom fields — see [Create custom fields for contacts](create-custom-fields)
- Bulk-load people from a spreadsheet — see [Import contacts from a file](import-contacts-from-a-file)

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## Related Articles

- [Search and filter your contacts](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/search-and-filter-contacts)
- [Create custom fields for contacts](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/create-custom-fields)
- [Import contacts from a file](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/import-contacts-from-a-file)
- [Contacts Overview](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/contacts-overview)
- [View a unified contact profile](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/view-a-unified-contact-profile)

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