contacts
: Managing contacts¶
The lino_xl.lib.contacts
plugin adds functionality for managing contacts.
It adds the concepts of "partners", "persons", "organizations" and "contact
roles".
This is a tested document. The following instructions are used for initialization:
>>> import lino
>>> lino.startup('lino_book.projects.min1.settings')
>>> from django.utils import translation
>>> from lino.api.doctest import *
>>> from django.db.models import Q
Database structure¶
This plugin defines the following database models.

The main models are
Person
andCompany
and their common basePartner
.A
RoleType
("Function") where you can configure the available functions.A
CompanyType
model can be used to classify organizations.
TODO: rename "RoleType" to "Function" or "ContactType"?
Dependencies¶
This plugin needs lino_xl.lib.countries
and lino.modlib.system
.
This plugin is being extended by Lino Welfare in
lino_welfare.modlib.contacts
or by Lino Voga in
lino_voga.modlib.contacts
.
Concepts¶
A partner can act as the recipient of a sales invoice, as the sender of an incoming purchases invoice, ... A partner has at least a name and usually also an address. A partner is never "just a partner", it is always either a (natural) person or an organization.
- partner
Any person or organization for which you want to keep contact data like postal address, phone number, etc. Represented by
Partner
.- person
A natural human person with a gender, first and last name. See also The Human mixin.
You can see the persons in your database via
. They are stored using thePerson
database model.- organization
A corporation, company, organization, family or any other potential partner that is not a person.
You can see the organizations in your database via
. They are stored using theCompany
database model.
A contact person is when a given person exercises a given function in a given organization. A contact function is what a given person can exercise in a given organization.
- contact person
The fact that a given person exercises a given function within a given organization.
The Contact persons panel of an organization's detail window shows the contact persons of this organization. The Is contact for panel of a person's detail window shows the organizations where this person exercises a function.
Contact person entries are stored using the
Role
database model.- contact function
A function that a person can exercise in an organization. Represented by
RoleType
.- signer function
A contact function that has
can_sign
set to True.A contact person exercising a signer function is allowed to sign business documents. See
Partner.get_signers()
.
The demo database defines the following contact functions:
>>> rt.show(contacts.RoleTypes)
==== ============= ================== ===================== ====================
ID Designation Designation (de) Designation (fr) Authorized to sign
---- ------------- ------------------ --------------------- --------------------
1 CEO Geschäftsführer Gérant Yes
2 Director Direktor Directeur Yes
3 Secretary Sekretär Secrétaire No
4 IT manager EDV-Manager Gérant informatique No
5 President Präsident Président Yes
==== ============= ================== ===================== ====================
The site operator¶
When this plugin is installed, the site manager usually creates a
Company
that represents the site operator, and have the field
SiteConfig.site_company
point to it.
>>> siteop = settings.SITE.site_config.site_company
>>> siteop.__class__
<class 'lino_xl.lib.contacts.models.Company'>
>>> print(siteop)
Rumma & Ko OÜ
>>> for obj in siteop.get_signers():
... print("{}, {}".format(obj.person.get_full_name(), obj.type))
Mrs Erna Ärgerlich, CEO
Models and views¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Partner
¶ The Django model used to represent a partner.
The contacts plugin defines two subclasses of
Partner
:Person
andCompany
. Applications can define other subclasses forPartner
. On the other hand, thePartner
model is not abstract, i.e. you can see a table where persons and organizations are together. This is useful e.g. in accounting reports where all partners are handled equally, without making a difference between natural an legal persons.-
name
¶ The full name of this partner. Used for alphabetic sorting.
Subclasses may hide this field and fill it automatically. For example on a
Person
, Lino automatically sets thename
field to <last_name>, <first_name>, and the field is usually hidden for end users.
-
prefix
¶ An optional name prefix. For organisations this is inserted before the name, for persons this is inserted between first name and last name.
-
email
¶ The primary email address.
-
phone
¶ The primary phone number.
Note that Lino does not ignore formatting characters in phone numbers when searching. For example, if you enter "087/12.34.56" as a phone number, then a search for phone number containing "1234" will not find it.
-
gsm
¶ The primary mobile phone number.
-
language
¶ The language to use when communicating with this partner.
-
purchase_account
¶ The general account to suggest as default value in purchase invoices from this partner.
This field exists only when
lino_xl.lib.ledger
is installed, which uses it as theinvoice_account_field_name
forTradeTypes.purchases
.
Two fields exist only when
lino_xl.lib.vat
is installed:-
vat_regime
¶ The default VAT regime to use on invoices for this partner.
-
vat_id
¶ The national VAT identification number of this partner.
-
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Partners
¶ -
detail_layout
¶ The detail layout of the Partners table is not set by default. Especially accounting applications will set it to
'contacts.PartnerDetail'
.That's because the Partners view that shows companies and persons merged together is useful only for certain accounting reports.
-
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Person
¶ Django model used to represent a person.
-
first_name
¶
-
last_name
¶
-
gender
¶
-
name
¶ See
Partner.name
.
-
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Persons
¶ Shows all persons.
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Company
¶ Django model used to represent an organization.
The verbose name is "Organization" while the internal name is "Company" because that's easier to type and for historical reasons.
-
type
¶ Pointer to the
CompanyType
.
The following fields are defined in the base model
Partner
, they are what companies and persons have in common:-
name
¶
-
street
¶
-
gsm
¶
-
phone
¶
-
get_signers
(today=None)¶ Return an iterable over the contact persons who can sign business documents (i.e. exercise a signer function) for this organization.
If today is specified and
with_roles_history
is True, return only the contact persons that were exercising a signer function at the given date.contact person represents a person that signs contracts, invoices or other business documents for the site operator.
-
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Companies
¶ Base table for all tables showing companies.
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
Role
¶ The Django model used to represent a contact person.
-
company
¶ The organization where this person has this role.
-
type
¶ The function of this person in this organization.
-
person
¶ The person having this role in this organization.
This is a learning foreign key. See Automatically creating contact persons
-
start_date
¶ When this person started to exercise this function in this organization.
This is a dummy field when
Plugin.with_roles_history
is False.
-
end_date
¶ When this person stopped to exercise this function in this organization.
This is a dummy field when
Plugin.with_roles_history
is False.
-
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
RoleType
¶ The Django model used to represent a contact function.
-
name
¶ A translatable designation. Used e.g. in document templates for contracts.
-
can_sign
¶ Whether this is a signer function.
-
Quick search¶
When doing a quick search in a list of partners, Lino searches only
the name
field and
not for example the street.
>>> rt.show(contacts.Partners, quick_search="berg")
==================== ===== =========================== ================
Name ID See as e-mail address
-------------------- ----- --------------------------- ----------------
Altenberg Hans 114 Organization, **Partner**
Garage Mergelsberg 104 **Partner**, Person
==================== ===== =========================== ================
Without that restriction, a user who enters "berg" in the quick search field would also get e.g. the following partners (because their address contains the query string):
>>> rt.show(contacts.Partners, column_names="name street",
... filter=Q(street__icontains="berg"))
===================== ===================
Name Street
--------------------- -------------------
Bastiaensen Laurent Am Berg
Collard Charlotte Auf dem Spitzberg
Ernst Berta Bergkapellstraße
Evers Eberhart Bergstraße
Kaivers Karl Haasberg
Lazarus Line Heidberg
===================== ===================
This behaviour is implemented using the quick_search_fields
attribute on the model.
>>> contacts.Partner.quick_search_fields
(<django.db.models.fields.CharField: prefix>, <django.db.models.fields.CharField: name>, <django.db.models.fields.CharField: phone>, <django.db.models.fields.CharField: gsm>)
Numeric quick search¶
You can search for phone numbers
>>> rt.show(contacts.Partners, quick_search="123", column_names="name phone id")
====================== ============== =====
Name Phone ID
---------------------- -------------- -----
Arens Andreas +32 87123456 112
Arens Annette +32 87123457 113
Dobbelstein Dorothée 123
====================== ============== =====
Quickly finding a partner using its primary key¶
A special type of quick search is when the search string starts with "#". In that case you get the partner with that primary key.
>>> rt.show(contacts.Partners, quick_search="#123", column_names="name phone id")
====================== ======= =====
Name Phone ID
---------------------- ------- -----
Dobbelstein Dorothée 123
====================== ======= =====
This behaviour is the same for all subclasses of Partner, e.g. for persons and for organizations.
>>> rt.show(contacts.Persons, quick_search="berg")
=================== ============================= ================ ======= ===== ===== ==========
Name Address e-mail address Phone GSM ID Language
------------------- ----------------------------- ---------------- ------- ----- ----- ----------
Mr Hans Altenberg Aachener Straße, 4700 Eupen 114
=================== ============================= ================ ======= ===== ===== ==========
>>> rt.show(contacts.Companies, quick_search="berg")
==================== ============================= ================ ======= ===== ===== ==========
Name Address e-mail address Phone GSM ID Language
-------------------- ----------------------------- ---------------- ------- ----- ----- ----------
Garage Mergelsberg Hauptstraße 13, 4730 Raeren 104
==================== ============================= ================ ======= ===== ===== ==========
Exporting contacts as vcard files¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
ExportVCardFile
¶ Download all records as a .vcf file which you can import to another contacts application.
This action exists on every list of partners when your application has
use_vcard_export
set to True.
User roles¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
SimpleContactsUser
¶ A user who has access to basic contacts functionality.
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
ContactsUser
¶ A user who has access to full contacts functionality.
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
ContactsStaff
¶ A user who can configure contacts functionality.
Filtering partners¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
PartnerEvents
¶ A choicelist of observable partner events.
-
has_open_movements
¶ See Filtering partners regarding ledger movements in ledger: General accounting. This choice exists only when
lino_xl.lib.ledger
is installed.
-
Other models¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
CompanyTypes
¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
CompanyType
¶ A type of organization. Used by
Company.type
field.
Model mixins¶
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
ContactRelated
¶ Model mixin for things that relate to either a private person or a company, the latter potentially represented by a contact person having a given role in that company. Typical usages are invoices or contracts.
Adds 3 database fields and two virtual fields.
-
contact_role
¶ The optional
Role
of thecontact_person
withincompany
.
-
partner
¶ (Virtual field) The "legal partner", i.e. usually the
company
, except when that field is empty, in which case partner contains thecontact_person
. If both fields are empty, then partner contains None.
-
recipient
¶ (Virtual field) The
Addressable
object to use when printing a postal address for this. This is typically either thecompany
orcontact_person
(if one of these fields is non-empty). It may also be alino_xl.lib.contacts.models.Role
object.
Difference between
partner
and recipient: an invoice can be issued and addressed to a given person in a company (i.e. aRole
object), but accountants want to know the juristic person, which is either thecompany
or a privateperson
(if nocompany
specified), but not a combination of both.-
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
PartnerDocument
¶ Deprecated. Adds two fields 'partner' and 'person' to this model, making it something that refers to a "partner". person means a "contact person" for the partner.
Print templates¶
-
contacts/Person/TermsConditions.odt
¶ Prints a "Terms & Conditions" document to be used by organisations who need a signed permission from their clients for storing their contact data. The default content may be localized.
Civil state¶
>>> from lino_xl.lib.contacts.choicelists import CivilStates
>>> show_choicelist(CivilStates)
======= ==================== ==================== ============================= =============================
value name en de fr
------- -------------------- -------------------- ----------------------------- -----------------------------
10 single Single Ledig célibataire
20 married Married Verheiratet marié
30 widowed Widowed Verwitwet veuf/veuve
40 divorced Divorced Geschieden divorcé
50 separated Separated Getrennt von Tisch und Bett Séparé de corps et de biens
51 separated_de_facto De facto separated Faktisch getrennt Séparé de fait
60 cohabitating Cohabitating Zusammenwohnend Cohabitant
======= ==================== ==================== ============================= =============================
-
class
lino_xl.lib.contacts.
CivilStates
¶ The global list of civil states that a person can have. The field pointing to this list is usually named
civil_state
.Usage examples are
lino_welfare.modlib.pcsw.models.Client>
andlino_tera.lib.tera.Client>
andlino_avanti.lib.avanti.Client>
.The four official civil states according to Belgian law are:
-
single
¶ célibataire : vous n’avez pas de partenaire auquel vous êtes officiellement lié
-
married
¶ marié(e) : vous êtes légalement marié
-
widowed
¶ veuf (veuve) / Verwitwet : vous êtes légalement marié mais votre partenaire est décédé
-
divorced
¶ divorcé(e) (Geschieden) : votre mariage a été juridiquement dissolu
Some institutions define additional civil states for people who are officially still married but at different degrees of separation:
-
de_facto_separated
¶ De facto separated (Séparé de fait, faktisch getrennt)
Des conjoints sont séparés de fait lorsqu'ils ne respectent plus le devoir de cohabitation. Leur mariage n'est cependant pas dissous.
La notion de séparation de fait n'est pas définie par la loi. Toutefois, le droit en tient compte dans différents domaines, par exemple en matière fiscale ou en matière de sécurité sociale (assurance maladie invalidité, allocations familiales, chômage, pension, accidents du travail, maladies professionnelles).
-
separated
¶ Legally separated, aka "Separated as to property" (Séparé de corps et de biens, Getrennt von Tisch und Bett)
La séparation de corps et de biens est une procédure judiciaire qui, sans dissoudre le mariage, réduit les droits et devoirs réciproques des conjoints. Le devoir de cohabitation est supprimé. Les biens sont séparés. Les impôts sont perçus de la même manière que dans le cas d'un divorce. Cette procédure est devenue très rare.
Another unofficial civil state (but relevant in certain situations) is:
-
cohabitating
¶ Cohabitating (cohabitant, zusammenlebend)
Vous habitez avec votre partenaire et c’est reconnu légalement.
Sources for above: belgium.be, gouv.qc.ca, wikipedia.org
-
Automatically creating contact persons¶
The Role.person
field
in the RolesByCompany
table
is a learning foreign key field:
if you type the name of a person that
does not yet exist in the database, Lino creates it silently.
Some examples of how the name is parsed when creating a person:
>>> pprint(rt.models.contacts.Person.choice_text_to_dict("joe smith"))
{'first_name': 'Joe', 'last_name': 'Smith'}
>>> pprint(rt.models.contacts.Person.choice_text_to_dict("Joe W. Smith"))
{'first_name': 'Joe W.', 'last_name': 'Smith'}
>>> pprint(rt.models.contacts.Person.choice_text_to_dict("Joe"))
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
django.core.exceptions.ValidationError: ['Cannot find first and last name in "Joe"']
>>> pprint(rt.models.contacts.Person.choice_text_to_dict("Guido van Rossum"))
{'first_name': 'Guido', 'last_name': 'van Rossum'}
The algorithm has already some basic intelligence but plenty of growing potential...
Don't read this¶
>>> def show_help_text(a):
... print(a.help_text)
... with translation.override('de'):
... print(a.help_text)
>>> lst = [contacts.Persons.insert_action.action,
... contacts.Companies.insert_action.action]
>>> for a in lst: show_help_text(a)
Open a dialog window to insert a new Person.
Öffnet ein Dialogfenster, um einen neuen Datensatz (Person) zu erstellen.
Open a dialog window to insert a new Organization.
Öffnet ein Dialogfenster, um einen neuen Datensatz (Organisation) zu erstellen.