---
title: Contact card (client card)
summary: A card is anyone the business deals with — a client, a supplier, someone looking for work. One card per person for the whole business.
tools: [talemo_find_contacts, talemo_get_contact, talemo_create_contact, talemo_update_contact]
related: [contact-points, contact-categories, contact-history, reminders-opt-out, notes-and-hidden-fields]
search: [client profile, customer card, CRM record]
---

# Contact card

A contact card describes one person the business deals with. Most cards are
clients, but a card can just as well be a supplier, a partner or someone who
wrote about a job. What the person is to the business is the card's category
(see [Contact categories](contact-categories.md)).

## What a card holds

- **Name** (required) and **family name**.
- **Contacts:** phone numbers, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram (see
  [Contacts of a card](contact-points.md)).
- **One category.**
- **A note** for the team (see [Note and hidden fields](notes-and-hidden-fields.md)).
- **Language.** Visit confirmations and reminders go to the client in this
  language. While it is empty, they go in the first language the business
  serves. The client's first words fill an empty language by themselves, if
  the business serves that language: Cyrillic gives Russian, Latin script gives
  English; emoji and digits give nothing, and the card waits for the next
  words. Once a person has set or
  cleared the language, incoming messages never change it. Only a language the
  business serves can be chosen.
- **Visits in short:** how many took place, the last one and the next one.

## One card for the whole business

A card belongs to the business, not to a branch. A client who visits two
branches has one card, and branches do not split the list of cards.

## Where cards come from

- A person creates one in **Contacts → New contact**; the category is required.
- A chat creates one. When someone writes to the business for the first time
  and no card has that address, Talemo creates a card in **Not sorted**, takes
  the name from the messenger profile and adds the address the person wrote
  from.
- The assistant, or an agent connected over MCP, creates one at a person's
  request.
- Booking creates one: when a visit is booked for a new client by name and number and no
  contact has that number, Talemo adds a client card and books it (see
  [Visits](../booking/visits.md)). If one has, the visit goes to that card, and there will
  not be a second.

## Own cards

A role can be limited to its own cards. A card is someone's own when it has a
visit with a resource that person works as — for example, a master who sees
only her own clients. Such a person sees only own cards in the list, and any
other card answers as not found. Under the heading **Contacts** the caption reads "Your clients — the people you see", and the
list has no **How to reach** column when the role sees no phone, no email and no messengers. A brand-new card has no visits yet, so it is
nobody's own.

## Finding a card

Search takes the beginning of a name or family name, three or more digits of a
number, or the beginning of an email or an @handle. The list can be narrowed to
one category.

## Tools and refusals

- A contact is the card of anyone the business deals with: a client, a supplier, someone who wrote and is not sorted yet. It has exactly one category.
- `talemo_find_contacts` finds cards by `q`: the start of a first or family name, three or more digits of a number, or the start of an email or @name. `category` narrows it to one category. Pass `next` from the answer as `after` for more. A role that keeps only its own cards sees only those.
- `talemo_get_contact` shows one card by `party_id`: name, category, note, language, `opt_out` and the ways to reach it. Fields the role closes are missing from the answer.
- `talemo_create_contact` needs `name` and `category`. Before creating, find the card: a way to reach that already belongs to another card of the business is refused with status 409, code `contact.taken`, and the refusal does not say whose card it is, so find that card by the digits with `talemo_find_contacts` and use it instead of creating a second one. A number without `+` and without `00` needs its country: status 400, code `contact.country_required`.
- `talemo_update_contact` changes the first name, family name, note, language or category; what is left out stays. The language is one the business serves, like `ru` or `en`, and the confirmations and reminders of the client go in it. A field the role closes is refused with `role.field_forbidden`. The language of the client is taken from their first words; the person's own setting is never overwritten by later messages.