Import Contacts from a Spreadsheet
Contacts can be imported from a spreadsheet in the form of a CSV or XLSX file. Click here for the spreadsheet which is to be used. Please note that the attached spreadsheet includes every possible contact field. Many of which are unnecessary. The only required fields are role and a (name or company). There are handful of rules you will want to fol...
Enable and Disable Logins (w/ Video)
Enabling and Disabling logins are fully controlled by an administrator of your account. From the Contacts Module, you can enable/disable a login with the click of a button. Enabling a Login Navigate to the Contacts Module. Make sure the person you wish to enable a login for already exists in the contact database. It is imperative that they have an e...
Add Contacts (w/ Video)
Manually adding contacts to AppColl is accomplished by following these steps. A video is shown at the bottom. From the Contacts Module click the add button in the upper right corner. A contact details page for a Patent Attorney is shown at the bottom of the screen. Select a role from the drop down menu in the upper left. Depending on the selected ro...
Create a Client or Solo Inventor Contact Record (w/ Video)
Adding a client, or solo inventor, is a simple process of going to the Contacts module, clicking the 'Add' button, selecting a role and populating the contact information. The following definitions provide some insight into the client fields. See the video at the bottom. Client vs Client/Solo Inventor - Solo Inventor is used when you have an indivi...
Change User Permissions and Restrict Access
Account Administrators can change permissions for any contacts in their account. Please Note : Account admins have access to everything, so their permissions cannot be altered. In order to change a user's permissions, open their contact record and click the "Permissions" button on the left. The below popup appears. Some of the options may not be av...
Remove and/or Merge Duplicate Contacts
The features described below are available to account administrators only. Contact merging cannot be undone , so it is important to check all selections carefully before proceeding. Contact merging is useful if you find that you have multiple contacts for the same person, inventor, client, etc. This can happen, for example, if slightly different ...
Contact Aliases
AppColl assists in the management of contact names where multiple different spellings of a name may exist in various matters or documents by providing the Alias field in a contact. This field contains a semi-colon separated list of alternate spellings for the name of the contact. When AppColl searches for a name it will look in the alias fields to f...
Mass Update Contacts
You can easily update one or more fields for your contacts by exporting the information you want to change, changing the information in Excel and importing the changes back into AppColl. Here are the steps: From the Contacts Module, filter for the information you want to change. For example, if you want to update/add addresses for your inventors, yo...
Why Can't I Delete a Contact?
AppColl prevents contact records from being deleted if the contact is associated with one or more of matters, tasks, billing items and invoices. This is to prevent unforeseen consequences. For example, AppColl prevents deletion of an inventor contact listed as an inventor on one or more applications. The association between the application and the i...
Search for Contact Records
The search bar at the top of each page can be used for searching contacts in addition to matters. In fact, the search bar looks for both matters and contacts based on the search term(s) used. For example, searching for 'john' returns all matters and contacts including this term. In the below example, contact records are found in the name fields and ...
Where Did All These Inventors Come From?
You may notice a large list of inventor contacts records appearing after your initial set of matters are imported. If your patent matters have been populated with data from Private Pair or EspaceNet, AppColl automatically creates contact records for each inventor. These contacts records only include a name and a role of inventor. It is possible to e...
Filter Contact Records
Contact records can be filtered in the same way as matters, tasks and billing items. From the Contacts Module, click the 'Add Filters' button. The below popup appears for entering one or more filter criteria. In this example, the filters are inventors having an address in the United States. There are 89 inventor records and only 10 of them have Unit...
Contacts Module Overview
The Contacts Module stores every entity associated with your AppColl account. This include: clients, inventors, attorneys, foreign associates and any other roles that fits your needs . Please Note : Additional roles can be added by contacting AppColl Support. Each contact record includes numerous fields for storing contact information. Depending on...