Contacts widget

The Contacts widget holds the handful of people a desk is about. That means the colleagues working on it with you, and just as often the people outside your organisation: the client, the supplier, the accountant, the photographer. Each person shows with their role, company and email, and opens to show their address and notes.

Use it on any desk where the work involves other people, such as a client account, a deal, an event or a project. Instead of hunting through your mail for who someone is, you see everyone involved in the same place as the work.

More about this widget Coming soon

Before you start

• The Contacts widget is part of every plan, and there is nothing to set up.
• Its suggestions come from your own work: a mailbox connected in Mail, the tasks on the desk, the calendars you have added and your organisation. You can use the widget without any of them and add people by hand.
• To invite someone into your organisation from the widget, you need to be signed in, working in an organisation rather than your personal workspace, and an admin of that organisation. See Your organisation Coming soon.
• The people you add are saved in PlexiDesk on this computer.

Add the widget

1. Open the desk.
2. Click Add widget in the header.
3. Click Contacts. The widget appears on the desk, reading Nobody on this desk yet.

In the Add widget menu, Contacts is the first item in the People & messages column. You can also type "contacts" into the search box at the top of the menu and press Enter.

You can also press ⌘ K on a Mac or Ctrl K on Windows, type Add Contacts and press Enter.

To move, resize, rename or remove the widget itself, use its title bar. See The widget title bar.

Add someone

1. Click the person icon at the top right of the widget. Its tooltip reads Add someone.
2. Fill in what you know: Name, Email, Role, Company and Address. You need at least a name or an email.
3. Click Add.

The person appears in the list with a Guest tag. Under their name you see their role, company and email.

To close the form without adding anyone, click the same icon again (it shows an X while the form is open).

Add someone from the suggestions

While the Add someone form is open, the widget lists People already on this work: up to eight people who already appear in your own work, each with the reason it is suggesting them.

Click a name to add that person. The reason is saved in their notes, so you can always see where they came from.

The widget never suggests someone who is already on this desk, your own email addresses, or automated senders such as no-reply, newsletter and notification addresses. People with more behind them, such as someone who has emailed you many times, are listed first.

Show everyone, your team or your guests

The buttons along the top of the widget filter the list:

• All shows everyone on the desk.
• Team shows the colleagues you added from your organisation.
• Guests shows everyone else.

The widget remembers which one you chose.

Open someone's card

Click a person to open their card. It shows their address and any notes, and the buttons for that person. Click them again to close it.

Change their details

1. Open their card and click Edit.
2. Change Name, Email, Phone, Role, Company or Address. Phone is only here, in Edit.
3. Click Save, or Cancel to leave them as they were.

Take someone off the desk

Open their card and click Remove. They are taken off this desk's list.

Invite a guest into your organisation

Invite to Plexii appears on the card of a guest who has an email address.

1. Make sure you are working in your organisation. Choose it in the workspace switcher at the top of the side menu if you need to. See Find your way around PlexiDesk.
2. Open the guest's card and click Invite to Plexii.

What happens next depends on whether they already use PlexiDesk:

• They already have a PlexiDesk account. They are added to your organisation as a member straight away, and the widget says so.
• They do not have an account yet. They become a member of your organisation when they create a PlexiDesk account with that email address. Let them know, and point them to the download page.

To manage the people in your organisation and their roles, see Manage your organisation Coming soon.

Ask Plexii about the people on a desk

The Contacts widget has an AI button, the first of the buttons in its title bar. Click it to open Plexii with this widget attached, then ask about the people on it. Plexii can read the names, roles, companies, email addresses and phone numbers on the list. See The Plexii panel and Widget AI.

When you share a live view of the desk

When you share a live web view of the desk, the Contacts widget appears to viewers as a placeholder, so the people on it are not shown. See Share a live web view of a desk.

Good ways to use it

• A client desk. Add the client, their accountant and your colleagues on the account. Put an Inbox widget beside it, set to the client's company domain, so the people and their mail are together.
• An event. Add the venue contact, the caterer and the photographer with their roles, so anyone opening the desk knows who to call about what.
• A new project. Open Add someone and take the suggestions: the people who already email you about the work and the people assigned its tasks.

For a full walkthrough with Contacts, Inbox, Email and Chat together, see Keep a client's people, mail and chat on their desk.

Common questions

Where do I add a phone number? Add the person first, then open their card and click Edit. Phone is one of the fields there.

Invite to Plexii is greyed out. It works only when you are signed in and working in an organisation. Sign in if you need to, choose your organisation in the workspace switcher and try again. Inviting also needs you to be an admin of that organisation; if you are not, ask one of its admins.

I do not see Invite to Plexii on someone's card. It appears only for guests who have an email address. Click Edit to add their email.

Someone I expected is not in the suggestions. The widget lists up to eight suggestions, leaves out anyone already on the desk, and reads only the latest 200 messages in your inbox. Mail suggestions need a mailbox connected in Mail. You can always add the person by hand.

How do I send someone a link to this desk? Share the desk from its share options. See Share a desk with people and Share a public link to a desk.

I opened the desk on another computer and the list is empty. The people you add are saved on the computer where you added them. Add them on the other computer too if you need them there.

Related tasks

• People & messages widgets
• Inbox widget
• Keep a client's people, mail and chat on their desk
• Share a desk with people
• Manage your organisation Coming soon
• The widget title bar