Personal vs shared contacts
The three kinds of contact in emu.chat, who can see each, and how syncing and importing decide visibility.
Written By EmuChat
Last updated About 13 hours ago
Every contact in emu.chat has a visibility setting that decides who can see it. There are three kinds: personal contacts that only you can see, shared contacts that everyone in your workspace can see, and synced contacts that a connector keeps up to date for you. This article explains how the three differ and how importing and syncing decide which one you get.
Personal contacts
A personal contact is visible only to you. No one else in your workspace can see it, message it, or edit it. Use personal contacts for people that are yours alone, like your own leads or direct relationships.
You choose this when you add or import a contact: turn on the Personal contact toggle while creating one, or tick Personal contacts when importing a file. You can switch an existing contact between personal and shared at any time from its edit panel.
Shared contacts
A shared contact is visible to everyone in your workspace. Any member can find it, message it, edit it and delete it. This is the default for a new contact, and it is what most contacts should be, so your team can pick up conversations with the same people.
Leaving the Personal contact toggle off (or leaving the Personal contacts import option unticked) makes a contact shared.
Synced contacts
A synced contact comes from a Microsoft connector, either your personal Outlook contacts or your organisation's Entra ID directory. The connector keeps these contacts up to date on a schedule, so you cannot edit their synced details or change their visibility by hand. Each connector collects its synced contacts into its own system list (for example, the Entra ID directory appears as a shared list named <Your organisation> Users).
Because the connector owns these contacts, the Personal contact toggle is locked on them and shows Visibility is managed by the sync configuration. The connector decides whether they are personal or shared when it is set up:
Entra ID contacts are always shared with the whole workspace, because the directory belongs to your organisation.
Outlook contacts are private to you by default. The person who sets up the Outlook sync can choose to share them instead, using the Keep contacts private option on the sync.
Note: Synced contacts are read-only in emu.chat. To change a synced contact's details, change them in Outlook or Entra ID and let the next sync bring the update across.
When the same number matches more than one contact
The same number can belong to more than one contact, for example a shared one and a personal one of your own. When several match, a picker at the top of the conversation's contact panel lets you choose which to use, each labelled Shared or Personal. The one you pick fills any merge fields in your messages, so choose the right one to keep personalised messages accurate. You only see shared contacts and your own personal ones, never another person's personal contact.
A workspace administrator sets which kind is chosen by default, Workspace contacts first or Personal contacts first, on the workspace settings page.
How importing matches contacts
When you import a file, emu.chat checks for people you already have so it does not create duplicates. Which contacts it checks against depends on the kind of import:
A personal import (with Personal contacts ticked) only matches against your own personal contacts.
A shared import only matches against the workspace's shared contacts.
In both cases, synced contacts are left out of the matching, so an import never overwrites a contact that a connector manages. For more on importing, see Importing contacts from a CSV.