Mass Transfer of Contacts

[Court]

Does anyone know of a way to mass transfer contacts? When accounts change owners the contacts seem to stay with the original owner and I would like to transfer them to current employees.

Thanks

[Gersh]

I had this bookmarked as one of my helpful help sections. If you have any questions about this, feel free to drop me a note!

- Steve
steveg@nuance.com

Transferring Records

Available in: Team, Professional, Enterprise, and Developer Editions



Administrators, and users with the "Transfer Record" permission, can transfer ownership of multiple accounts or leads. In addition, users with the "Transfer Leads" permission can transfer multiple leads.

To transfer multiple records from one user or queue to another:

Before transferring a record, make sure the new owner has sharing access and at least "Read" permissions to the record you are transferring and all associated records.
Choose Setup | Data Management | Mass Transfer Records.
Click the link for the type of record to transfer.
In the Transfer from and Transfer to fields, fill in the name of the existing and new record owners. For leads, you can transfer to and from users or queues.
If your organization uses divisions, select the Change division... checkbox to set the division of all transferred records to the new owner's default division.
When transferring accounts, you can select the Transfer open opportunities... checkbox if you want to transfer open opportunities owned by other users that are associated with the account.
When transferring accounts, select the Transfer closed opportunities checkbox if you want to transfer the closed opportunities associated with the accounts. This option applies only to closed opportunities owned by the account owners; closed opportunities owned by other users are not changed.
Fill in search conditions that the records must match. For example, you could search for all accounts owned by Joe Smith with "Billing State equals CA." See Entering Filter Criteria for more information.
Choose Search to look for records that match.
Select the checkbox next to each record you want to transfer, and click Transfer.
: NOTE
Mass transfers do not trigger workflow rules.


Transfer of Associated Items
When you change record ownership, some associated items that are owned by the current record owner are also transferred to the new owner.

Record Associated Items that are also transferred
Accounts Contacts, attachments, notes, open activities, open opportunities owned by the current account owner, and optionally, closed opportunities and open opportunities owned by other users.
Leads Open activities. When transferring leads to a queue, open activities are not transferred.



Access to Transferred Items
When transferring accounts and their related data in Professional, Enterprise, and Developer Editions, all previous access given by manual sharing, sharing rules, or sales teams is removed. Any relevant sharing rules are then applied to the data based on the new owners. The new owner may need to manually share the transferred accounts and opportunities as necessary to grant access to certain users.

[AMartin]

Hi,

I think the key here is that only Contacts owned by the Account owner get transferred when an Account is transferred. Contacts not owned by the Account owner are not affected by an Account transfer.

That may be the reason why it looks like your account transfers are not affecting Contact ownership.

Hope this helps.

Aiden

[Court]

Exactly. I'm just trying to figure out a way to do a mass transfer. We have teams of one inside/one outside sales person. They share visibity and editing functionality into accounts. So, if both of them leave, and I go to transfer ownership of the account, only those contacts owned by the listed "account owner" get transfered. The rest stay in the name of the other person who is no longer with us. Ultimatly I would like a button that says "transfer all contacts to existing account owner".....wishful thinking I suppose.

[Scot]

If you have Enterprise Edition, you could use the sforce Connector to do this type of transfer.

Say Ralph1 and Bob2 were the original sales team, with Ralph1 the primary one. Now they've been replaced with Mary1 and Sue2. The reassignment of accounts from Ralph1 to Mary1 could also transfer all the contacts owned by Ralph, in his accounts, to Mary. You're left with some other contacts owned by the old Bob2.

You could produce a report of contacts owned by Bob2 (possibly limited to accounts owned by Mary1). Then change the owner of these contacts to either Mary or Sue, as desired. The change is done by overlaying the Bob2 ownerid with Mary1, highlighting these cells, and requesting "Update selected cells".

Scot

[AMartin]

Hi Scot,

The sforce connector can do this - if you have Enterprise Edition. SFDC's data transfer utilities focus on Account Owners. Currently, if a sales assistant is replaced, there is no neat way to transfer their contacts, open events, open activities or even opportunities. Renaming the old assistant's record is not an option - this compromises historical accuracy. For companies with a large sales support base, transfer tools based on users, not Account owners, would be very helpful. It would be great if inside the appication, I could transfer all records owned by User1 to User2, with an option of leaving closed records alone.

Thanks.

Aiden

[Scot]

Aiden,
I agree, what you suggest would be easier and available to all users.

Scot