Inspectors understand the importance of maintaining a solid network of contacts, including real estate agents, buyers, and sellers. The Inspector Dashboard offers a way to manage and interact with your contacts. In this article, we will walk you through searching for and viewing contacts, adding new contacts to your network, editing contact information, removing contacts from your network, and setting permissions for customers and representatives. Let's dive in!

Search for and View a Customer or REP

The first step to managing your contacts is to locate and view them within the HomeGauge Dashboard. Here's how you can do it:

1. Log into your Dashboard
2. From the menu, click Contacts
3. Click Real Estate Pros or Buyers / Sellers. Your contacts will be listed here.
4. Search by clicking Search My Contacts, fill in the Search box and, choose an option from the Search By box, then click Search.

Add a Customer or REP to your Contact Network

Expanding your network of contacts is vital for growing your home inspection business. You can add contacts to your network through appointments and reports:

Adding Contacts through Appointments

• When creating a new customer or representative in the "New Appointment" screen, they will automatically become part of your contact network once the appointment is finalized. For more information on this process, please refer to the article Inspector Dashboard: Creating and Managing Appointments.

Adding Contacts through Reports

• By including contacts in a report, they will also be added to your contact network. For detailed instructions on this method, please look at the article Inspector Dashboard: Add, Remove and Troubleshooting a Customer or REP to a Report.

Edit a Customer's or REP's Info

Keeping your contact information up to date is essential for effective communication. If you need to make changes to a customer's or representative's details, follow these steps:

• If the report has not been uploaded yet, see this article, please visit this article at, Report Writer Desktop: Add, Edit, and Delete Customers and REPs.
• Follow these instructions if the report has already been uploaded to the Dashboard with the incorrect information/email address.

1. 1. Find the report with the incorrect customer information
   2. To the right of the customer's name is their HomeGauge user name. Click the user name.
   3. Click Edit Customer/REP Info to change name, address, or phone number. Click Submit when finished. 
      1. If the customer or REP have logged in, you can Submit Request asking them to log in and update their information. 
   4. The email address(es) are listed on the right of the page. Change the email address or add a new one, then click Update Email Addresses.
   5. On the next page, click the Submit Change button near the bottom of the screen.
   6. If you happen to receive an error, please feel free to visit our troubleshooting articles. Please visit this article at Inspector Dashboard: Add, Remove, and Troubleshooting a Customer or REP to a Report.

Remove a REP or Customer from your Network

Managing your contact network may require removing some contacts. If you are in a multi-inspector firm and need to delete an outdated contact, you can remove the contact for everyone in your company. Here's how you can do it:

1. From the menu, click Contacts
2. Click Real Estate Pros or Buyers / Sellers. Your contacts will be listed here.
3. Search by clicking Search My Contacts, fill in the Search box, choose an option from the Search By box, then click Search
4. Note for multi-inspector firms: Check the box Also remove contact from inspectors in my company to remove a contact for everyone in your company.
5. Once you find the contact, click Remove from Network

Edit Permissions for Customers and Reps

Setting appropriate permissions for your contacts helps control report access and ensures confidentiality. To modify permissions for a particular report, follow these steps:

1. Find the report you want to change permissions for
2. Above the report name, click the Viewing tab, then Edit Permissions
3. Check the box in the Viewing column next to each person you would like to be able to see the report
   
   Tip! Set Permissions Quickly
   You can click the All or Clear buttons near the top of the Viewing column to set or clear all the checkboxes at once.
4. Check the box in the Forward column next to each person you would like to be able to forward the report to another party
5. Click Set Permissions to complete the task

Set Default Viewing and Forwarding Permissions

To streamline the process of granting permissions, you can set default permissions for customers and real estate professionals. This will automatically grant viewing and/or Forwarding Permissions when a report is uploaded from the Report Writer Desktop. Default permissions should be done with caution since it could give a customer access to documents before you want them to have them.

1. From the menu on the left, click Account Settings
2. Click Upload/Email Options
3. Check the boxes under Customer and Real Estate Pro to set permissions appropriately
4. Click Save Upload Document Options

Download Customers and REPs Lists from the Dashboard

For your convenience, you can download your Online Contacts list from the HomeGauge Dashboard:

1. From your Dashboard, select Contacts 
2. Choose either Real Estate Pros or Buyers/Sellers from the sub-menu.
3. Once in the desired contacts database, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the Export feature.
4. You can choose a contact for All Years or a specific year. This will create a .csv file that can be opened with your MS Excel spreadsheet or Open Office program. (Open Office is a free download if you don't own Excel.)