Add Your First Contact: Creating Contact Records Step by Step

What is a Contact?#

A Contact is a person in your CRM — a customer, prospect, or partner. Every contact has their own record that stores details, logs call and email history, attaches notes, links deals, and tracks your full relationship history with that person.

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For bulk data entry, use Import Data (next article) to upload many contacts from a spreadsheet. Create contacts manually one at a time for individuals who come in through other channels.

Step 1 — Go to Contacts#

In the left sidebar, click CRM >> Contacts under your CRM modules.

Step 2 — Click Create contact#

Click Create Contact at the top right to open the creation form.

Step 3 — Fill in the contact details#

The Create Contact form opens with all fields configured for your Contacts module. Fill in as much as you know. The only required fields are:

Contact Owner — auto-filled with your account. Change it to assign the record to a different salesperson.
First Name — contact's given name (max 100 characters).

Everything else is optional — including Last Name, Email, and Phone. If you enter an Email it must be unique across your contacts (the system checks for duplicates on save); Phone does not need to be unique.

The remaining standard fields are all optional:

Company — their organisation name
Job Title — their role at the company
Lead Source — how you acquired them (Website, Referral, Event, Cold Call, etc.)

Create Contact form showing all standard fields

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Your Contacts module may have additional custom fields set up by your administrator. Fill in what you know — you can always edit the record by clicking any field directly on the contact detail page.

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Lead Source is worth setting consistently. It powers reports that show which acquisition channels generate the most contacts and deals — helping you decide where to focus marketing spend.

Step 4 — Set the Contact Owner and save#

The Contact Owner field is at the top of the form and defaults to your account. If you are creating a contact on behalf of a colleague — for example, adding a lead from a trade show they attended — change the owner before saving.

When ready, click Save at the top of the form.

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The contact record is created immediately. You land on the contact's detail page where you can log a call, send an email, attach a note, or create a follow-up task — all without leaving the record.

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AI Engage CRM enforces a unique email address on each contact. If another contact already uses the same email, you will see a duplicate warning. Review the existing record before proceeding — merging duplicates later is more work than preventing them now.

Step 5 — The contact detail page#

After saving, you land on the contact's detail page. From here you can:

Edit any field — click directly on a field value to edit it inline
Log a call or meeting — use the Activity section on the right panel
Send an email — click the Email button in the action bar
Add a note — capture context, meeting outcomes, or instructions for the team
Create a task — set a follow-up reminder with a due date
Link to a Deal — associate the contact with an open sales opportunity

Contact detail page after creation showing fields, timeline, and activity panel

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The fastest way to create a contact from anywhere in the CRM is the + Create button at the top of the sidebar. It opens a quick-create dialog so you can capture a name and contact detail without navigating away from what you are working on.

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Next up: Once your first contacts are in, bring in the rest with Import Data — upload a spreadsheet and map your columns in minutes.

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