Create Your First Contact Record | Kizen Basics

Overview

Caution: This setup reflects Kizen's default configuration. Your administrator may have customized your layout, so columns or navigation may appear differently. Trial accounts may have limited features.

In Kizen, a Contact represents a single person you plan to communicate with through emails, SMS messages, or other outreach. Contacts are part of Kizen’s built-in data model and work like a standard Record type.

Email acts as the primary identifier for communication purposes, but it is not required. If left blank, it may limit certain lookup or messaging scenarios.

Note: Storing people in Contacts allows you to message them through Kizen’s SMS or email Agentic Workflows. You should always store people as Contacts even if you don't plan to message them.

Why This Matters

Contacts are the standard way to store people in Kizen. Every individual your organization interacts with should be stored as a Contact Record, regardless of whether you plan to communicate with them directly.

Using Contacts consistently ensures that you:

• Maintain a single, centralized Record for each person

• Enable email and SMS Agentic Workflows when communication is required

• Track activities, interactions, and history tied to that individual

• Keep operational data organized separately within Objects

As your data model grows, storing all people in Contacts helps maintain a clear structure between individuals and the operational Records associated with them. This makes Agentic Workflows, reporting, and integrations more predictable and easier to manage.

In Contacts, Email acts as the unique identifier for communication purposes — but it is not required, and some users may leave it blank which can cause data retrieval issues if trying to use it for anything other than messaging customers.

Before You Begin

Before creating your Contacts, you must have the following:

• Admin role and permissions to create and edit Records

• A Business workspace in Kizen (See: Create Your First Business Workspace)

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Meet The Reyes Family

To help you understand how Contact Records work, we’ll follow the Reyes family, who are visiting Flywheel Adventure Park for the first time. We introduced the following family in the Kizen Basics in Action topic.

• Marcus Reyes: Planner of the family trip; books tickets online.

• Elena Reyes: Manages communication and receives all confirmation emails.

• Sofia Reyes (age 12): Loves roller coasters; needs a wristband waiver.

• Caleb Reyes (age 8): Signs up for the Junior Explorer scavenger event.

Marcus purchases tickets through the Flywheel Adventure Park online form. When he submits the booking, you’ll store him as a Contact because Flywheel Adventure Park needs to send him:

• A confirmation email

• Instructions on the Day of Park entry

• A survey after the visit

Elena, Sofia, and Caleb will also be stored as Contacts, even though they do not need to receive emails directly. In this lesson, you will create Marcus’ Contact Record in Kizen. You will then apply the same steps to create Contact Record for Elena, Sofia, and Caleb.

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Creating Contact Records

1

In Kizen, navigate to Contacts

Select Data > Contacts in your navigation.

The Contacts page appears.

2

Select NEW CONTACT

The Add Contact modal appears.

3

Add all Contact details

Fill out the form using our example. Since Marcus submitted an online booking form to purchase tickets, he is the first Contact we will add.

Enter the following:

• First Name: Marcus

• Last Name: Reyes

• Email: [email protected]

  • Not a required field, but necessary for email communications and is the unique identifier for the Record.

• Email Status: Opt In

  • This is required for messaging as all other statuses will prevent emails from being sent by Kizen.

• Home Phone: [phone]

  • Not a required field, but necessary for SMS communications.

• Custom Fields: Any fields Flywheel Adventure Park configured for guest communication.

Note: These are fields that are customizable and can capture any field data you specify. By default Primary Company Record and Additional Company Records are visible. For now we will leave these blank.

For this example we will use the following:

• Title: Mr.

Titles help you label Contacts with options like Dr., Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Miss. You can add a new one from the dropdown using Add Title.

• Tags: Leave it Blank

Tags let you organize Contacts into meaningful groups, like “CloudCon 2021 Signups,” “Drip Campaign 2.1 Beta,” or “Joe’s Hand-Curated Prospects.”

• Birthday: 12/15/1983

• Timezone: America/Chicago

4

Select SAVE

After saving Marcus' Record, you will see:

• All visible fields: (standard + custom)

• Timeline: where future activities and emails will appear

• Activity Panel: where staff can log calls, notes, or reminders in the future

• Agentic Workflows: which can send Marcus a confirmation email or create a follow-up task once it's set up.

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Applying What You've Learned

With Marcus's Contact Record complete, it’s time to create Contact Records for the rest of the family using the same steps. Use the information below to set it up.

Field	Elena Reyes	Sofia Reyes	Caleb Reyes
First Name	Elena	Sofia	Caleb
Last Name	Reyes	Reyes	Reyes
Email	[email protected]	[email protected]	[email protected]
Email Status	Opt In	Opt In	Opt In
Home Phone	234-567-8911	—	—
Title	Mrs.	—	—
Tags	—	—	—
Birthday	03/08/1986	07/14/2012	09/02/2016
Timezone	US/Central	US/Central	US/Central
Custom Fields	Blank	Blank	Blank

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Editing Your Viewable Columns

As you can see, Marcus Reyes has now been added as Contacts in Kizen. By default the following columns are viewable:

• Full Name

• Email

• Mobile phone

• Titles

• Tags

Next, we are going to modify the columns to display the fields we want and in what order.

1

Click on Edit Columns

You will be taken to the Edit My Columns screen

2

Move your chosen columns into the Active Table Columns

For this example we will move:

• Home phone

• Birthday

• Email Status

• Timezone

We'll also remove the following by placing them into Available Columns:

• Mobile phone

• Tags

You can also reorder your columns on the table by placing them in the order you would like for them to display in Active Table Columns. In this example you can see the added and removed columns, and the new order.

3

Select SAVE

This will save your column choices and take you back to the Contacts page.

Now you can see the Contacts page display with your new column order.

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How This Fits Into Agentic Workflows

Now that you’ve added Marcus Reyes and customized your Contact table view, the next step is to add the rest of the Reyes family as Contact Records.

Even if Elena, Sofia, and Caleb are not the recipients of emails or SMS messages, they should still be stored as Contacts because they represent real people tied to park operations and guest history. In Kizen, a Contact can exist without being used for messaging.

As you add Elena, Sofia, and Caleb Reyes:

• Create one Contact per person

• Leave Email blank for family members who should not receive communications

• Set messaging-related fields (such as Email Status) according to your business rules

• Use consistent names and information (like phone number or address) so the family can be associated correctly in later steps

When you finish, you should have four Contact Records:

• Marcus Reyes (primary communication Contact with an email listed)

• Elena Reyes

• Sofia Reyes

• Caleb Reyes

In the next lesson, you’ll start building the data model that connects these Contacts to operational records such as tickets and Activities.

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How This Fits Into Agentic Workflows

As soon as Marcus and his family becomes a Contact, Kizen can:

• Send a confirmation email

• Trigger a welcome SMS

• Create a pre-visit task for staff

• Add Marcus or his family to an email drip sequence

• Kick off Workflows tied to Contact creation

Adding people to Contacts also allows you to later build Agentic Workflows such as:

• Sending reminders

• Assigning Activities

• Creating Scheduled Activities

• Tracking guest history

• Building Dashboards of guest engagement

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Contact Capabilities By Role

Admins

• Configure Contact fields

• Manage permissions

• Set up Workflows and Agentic Workflows connected to Contacts

Technical Builders

• Use Objects APIs to create or update Contact Records programmatically

• Configure inbound webhooks when Contacts originate from external forms or systems

• Map incoming data to the Contact Object through ETL or integration tools

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Tying It Back Into Your Industry

While the Reyes family example demonstrates how Contacts work in a theme park scenario, the same concepts apply across industries. A Contact is simply a Record representing a person, whether you communicate with them directly through email, SMS, or automated Workflows, or not.

How you structure your Contact Data Model determines how easily your organization can manage communication, track interactions, and automate processes as your system grows.

Below are examples of how Contacts function in three common industries supported by Kizen.

Insurance

In insurance, a Contact often represents a policyholder, applicant, or agent who needs to receive quotes, renewal notices, eligibility updates, or claims communications.

Example Contact Agentic Workflows:

• Email a quote packet after an application is submitted

• Notify an agent when underwriting status changes

• Send renewal reminders or required-document checklists

• Trigger tasks for claims adjusters or verification teams

Use Objects to store structured data like applications, policies, beneficiaries, claims, and supporting documents, while Contacts remain the communication endpoint.

Healthcare

Financial Services

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What’s Next?

Now you’ll begin building the foundation of Kizen’s data model. In Create Your First Object, you will first create a Tickets Object to track purchases like Marcus’s park tickets. You will then create Concessions and Ride Waiver Objects to track food and merchandise purchases and store ride waiver information for guests.