import { Callout } from "nextra/components";

# Contacts

Contacts are the people Rentalot knows about: prospects, applicants, renters, and others. Rentalot creates a contact automatically when someone completes your pre-screening or submits your property blast form. You can also add or import contacts yourself.

## Review a new prospect

1. Open **Contacts** from the dashboard sidebar. Use **Search by name, email, or phone...** or the status filter to find someone.
2. Select the contact to open their contact page.
3. Under **Submissions**, open the pre-screening submission to read every answer.
4. Mark the submission **Approved** or **Denied**. Add internal notes if you like; the prospect never sees them.
5. Take the next step from the contact page: **Send booking link**, share their **Property blast link**, or **Send Nudge** (see below).

For the complete flow, see the [Rental Workflow Guide](/docs/rental-workflow).

## Contact details

Each contact stores:

- **Name**, **Email**, and **Phone**. A contact needs an email address or a phone number. Rentalot also uses them to recognize returning prospects.
- **Status**: Prospect, Scheduled, Applicant, Renter, or Archived. Pre-screening results (Qualified, Not Qualified, Needs Review) are shown separately as the qualification outcome.
- **Role**, such as Tenant, Landlord, Property Manager, or Vendor
- **Source** and **Referral Source**: where the contact came from
- **Language preference**: detected from the language the prospect used during pre-screening, shown as a flag on contact cards, and editable on the contact page
- **Internal notes**: private notes only you can see. They're never shared with prospects.

## Add contacts

### One at a time

Go to **Contacts** > **Add Contact**, enter a name and an email or phone number, and save.

### From a spreadsheet

Go to **Contacts** > **Import** (or **Import from Spreadsheet** when your list is empty) and upload a CSV, TSV, Excel (`.xlsx`/`.xls`), or JSON file. Files can be up to 10 MB and 500 rows.

## Contact detail page

The contact page gives you the full picture:

- **Submissions**: pre-screening answers, including voice transcripts, with an approve/deny review
- **Interested Properties**: properties the contact picked on your blast page
- **Conversation**: email exchanged with the contact
- **Rental pipeline checklist**: tracks progress such as completing and reviewing pre-screening
- **Copy pre-screening link**: a personal link for this contact that fills in who they are
- **Send booking link**: emails the contact your scheduling link. Turn it on in **Settings** > **Notifications** > **Send booking link emails**; it needs a Scheduling URL or Cal.com.
- **Copy JSON** and **Download JSON**: export this one contact

### Send a nudge

**Send Nudge** emails a short message to the contact from your connected email account. Pick a nudge type, write your message, and click **Send**.

- Requires the **Starter** plan or higher and a connected email account ([Email](/docs/email)).
- The contact needs an email address.
- Starter includes the **Check-in (idle prospect)** and **Showing reminder** types; Pro and Scale include every type.

<Callout type="info">
  **Coming soon:** automatic nudges that send themselves when a prospect goes quiet. For now, send nudges manually. See [Follow-ups & Nudges](/docs/follow-ups).
</Callout>

## Select and delete

Click **Select** to choose several contacts, then **Delete** them in one step. Deleting a contact removes it from your Contacts list and can't be undone from the dashboard.

## Returning prospects

When a prospect comes back to a pre-screening form and their email or phone matches an existing contact, Rentalot fills in what it already knows and skips the identity questions.

## Export

Export all your contacts, along with your other data, as JSON from **Settings** > **Account** > **Export My Data**.

## API access

For programmatic access, see the [Contacts API](/docs/api-reference/contacts).

## Related

- [Workflows](/docs/workflows#reviewing-applications): what prospects see after you review them.
- [Conversations](/docs/conversations): read and reply to prospect email.
- [Showings](/docs/showings): schedule a viewing with a contact.