Contact Type
What It Is
A Contact Type is a workspace category for people, such as Member or Prospect. It gives staff a common classification without changing the fact that each contact represents one person. Authorized users create the catalogue definition with a name and stable configuration identity, and individual contacts can select it or remain untyped.
The type can also name Platform definitions for presentation. Its assignments help resolve the forms and layouts appropriate to that category, allowing a member entry task to differ from another kind of person record without building a separate person model.
Why It Exists
Our reading is that a workspace needs its own vocabulary for people while retaining a shared contact foundation. Staff can classify a person consistently and choose presentation appropriate to that category. Putting the classification in a reusable definition avoids copying the category's configuration into every person and keeps a later terminology or presentation adjustment distinct from a person's identity.
What It Is Not
A Contact Type is not contact status, membership eligibility, or a security role. A contact classified as Member does not acquire a membership record or permission merely through that label. The type is also not a form or layout definition: Platform metadata owns those objects, and CRM selects them through validated assignments. A person without a type remains a contact.
What It Controls
The type identifies the person's classification and can override the workspace's presentation assignments for individual form and layout slots. Effective resolution can choose a type-specific form or layout while falling back to defaults for slots the type leaves empty. This affects which configured presentation staff receive, including the page layout that organizes record cards.
Active catalogue choices shape contact creation and sole-choice preselection. An existing contact retains an inactive classification, and service reference validation differs from the chooser's active-only policy. Used types resist deletion, so deactivation can retire new selection without stripping meaning from existing records. Catalogue order affects the shared list rather than the person's identity.
How It Is Used
The CRM Administrator configures the classification and its presentation assignments. The CRM Editor encounters active choices at creation and uses the resolved presentation when working with contacts. Create a member record and inspect the saved information begins with that choice. Staff should inspect the person's actual business records before treating a category as evidence of entitlement or standing that another application owns.
Example
An association defines Member and Prospect contact types, giving Member a tailored edit form and leaving its page-layout slot at the workspace default. A coordinator creates Ruth as Member and receives those effective choices. Later Prospect is deactivated: existing prospects keep their classification, but new chooser visits omit it. No person's history or membership rights are rewritten simply because a catalogue choice changes.
How It Relates
Contact Type classifies Contact and uses CRM Settings as the fallback source for presentation assignments. Platform metadata owns forms, layouts, and the card model used by presentation. Organization Type and Affiliation Type classify different ideas, and Contact Role describes responsibilities. Record Protection and History constrains catalogue mutations where locks apply; membership records remain owned by the Membership application.