Manage the shared contact directory

Build the contact list that appears on the desk phones, import it from a spreadsheet, and push updates to the phones.

The contact directory is one shared address book per phone system. It appears on the desk phones under DIRECTORY, so staff can look up a supplier or a regular customer and dial from the handset instead of retyping a number. Contacts are optionally organized into groups, which become the group labels on the phone; anything without a group shows under Ungrouped.

Open Settings, then Contacts. The page hides itself from anyone whose role cannot manage contacts, so if you cannot find it, ask an administrator about your role.

Prerequisites

The intended phone system selected in the dashboard header. The directory belongs to one phone system.
A role that can manage contacts.
Provisioned desk phones if you want the directory to reach handsets.

Add a contact

Select New Contact, or + Contact inside the group you want it in.
Enter a Name — this is the label on the phone’s screen, up to 100 characters in the form.
Choose a Group, or leave it as No group (Ungrouped).
Fill in the numbers. Each contact carries up to three, and the positions are fixed because they map to the phone’s own fields:

Field Required On the phone

Office Yes Office number

Mobile No Mobile number

Other No Other number
Watch the hint under each number. A recognized entry shows the canonical form it will be saved as, such as +14155551234; anything unrecognized shows the reason instead and blocks the save. You can type a 10-digit North American number, an 11-digit number starting with 1, or a full international number beginning with +.
Select Add Contact.

Field	Required	On the phone
Office	Yes	Office number
Mobile	No	Mobile number
Other	No	Other number

Editing works the same way — open Edit on the row. Clearing a number also clears its label, and a contact always keeps at least the Office number.

Organize contacts into groups

New Group creates a group. The name is what appears as the group label on the phone, so keep it short and avoid line breaks, leading or trailing spaces, and other control characters — those are rejected. Group names must be unique within the phone system.
Rename changes the label everywhere it appears.
Delete group removes only the grouping. The contacts inside it survive and move to Ungrouped.

Import contacts from a spreadsheet

Importing is the fastest way to seed a directory, and it is a review-then-commit flow rather than a blind upload.

Select Import.
Paste comma-separated rows in the column order name, group, office, mobile, other. Office is required; group, mobile, and other are optional. A header row is detected automatically. Up to 255 rows per import.
Select Next to see the preview. Every row gets a status: New contact, Will update when the name matches a contact you already have, or Blocked with the reason. A group that does not exist yet is flagged as a new group and created for you.
Fix or remove every blocked row — the import stays disabled while any row is blocked, so nothing is written from a partly valid paste.
Select Import. The summary reports how many contacts were created and updated, and how many groups were added.

Matching is by contact name, case-insensitively, so an import is also the way to bulk-update existing entries: keep the names identical and change the numbers. Phone cells in an import accept 10 digits, or 11 digits starting with 1; other formats are blocked rather than guessed at.

Push the directory to the phones

Contact changes do not appear on the handsets the instant you save. Select Refresh phones to push the current directory to every registered phone in this phone system. The result tells you how many phones were refreshed and how many did not respond; phones that miss the push pick the directory up on their own refresh cycle. Phones that are unplugged or unregistered are not counted.

Remove contacts

Delete one contact from its row’s delete action.
Select the checkboxes — or a section’s header checkbox — and use Delete selected to remove several at once. This cannot be undone, and the confirmation reports the count before you commit.

Expected result

The page lists every contact under Ungrouped or its group with the Office, Mobile, and Other numbers in readable form, and after a refresh the same names and groups appear on the desk phones’ DIRECTORY screen.

Troubleshooting

The Contacts page is not in the navigation: Your role cannot manage contacts. The dashboard hides the section rather than showing an area you cannot use.
A number will not save: The hint under the field names the problem. Use a 10-digit North American number, an 11-digit number starting with 1, or a full international number starting with +.
A group name is rejected: Remove line breaks, leading or trailing spaces, and any unusual characters, and check that no other group already uses the name.
Import will not start: At least one row is blocked or the paste could not be parsed. The preview names the reason on each row; common ones are a missing or malformed Office number, a duplicated name inside the same paste, a name that matches more than one existing contact, and a name or group that starts with =, +, -, @, or | — spreadsheet formula characters are refused.
An import that previewed cleanly fails on submit: Someone changed the directory while you were reviewing. The rows that now conflict are re-flagged in the preview — recheck and retry.
A phone still shows the old list: Run Refresh phones again and confirm the phone is registered. A handset that is offline picks up the change when it next refreshes.
The directory looks wrong after switching shops: Each phone system has its own directory. Check the phone-system name in the header.