Add and edit records

Add customers, companies and deals to Mesy, keep their details up to date, and choose who looks after each one. Each customer, company or deal is a record. Each kind of record, such as Contacts or Deals, has its own list in the sidebar. The details on a record, such as a phone number, are its fields.

Members can change or delete only the records they own or created. Admins can change any record. Managers can change any record they can see, unless your admin has turned on Record sharing and made that list read-only for everyone else.

Add a record

To fill in every field at once:

1. Open the list from the sidebar, such as Contacts (or whatever your business calls it).
2. Click New Contact. The button names the list, so on your Deals list it reads New Deal.
3. Fill in the fields. A required field has a red asterisk after its name.
4. Click Create Contact. The form closes and your new contact shows in the list.

If a required field is empty or a value is wrong, a message shows under that field, such as “Enter a valid email address”. Mesy saves nothing until you fix it.

If “Possible duplicate” shows while you type, a matching record may already exist. See Find and merge duplicates.

Add several records by name

On a computer, the last row of the table lets you add records one after another:

1. Click Add New at the bottom of the table.
2. Type the name, such as Priya Raman.
3. Press Enter. The new record shows in the list, and the box stays open for the next name.

Press Escape or click somewhere else to close it.

For a contact, Mesy splits what you type into first and last name. The last word becomes the last name. For other lists, what you type becomes the record’s name.

For deals, you can also add a record straight into a stage (one step in your sales process) from the board. See Work a pipeline on the kanban board.

Edit a record in the panel

Click a record’s name in the table to open it in the panel on the right. On a phone, the list shows cards. Tap a card and the panel fills the screen.

To rename the record, click its title. For a contact, you get two boxes: first name and last name. Press Enter or click somewhere else to save, or press Escape to cancel. Mesy doesn’t save an empty name.

The fields are under Details. Click a value to change it. Press Enter or click somewhere else to save. Pick-from-a-list fields, dates and long text save as described in Edit fields in the table. An empty field shows a prompt such as “Set phone”.

When some fields are filled in, the empty ones are hidden behind a line such as 3 empty fields. Click it to fill them in.

On deals, you may see a Next step field above Details. Your admin decides whether it’s there. Fields that point to other records are further down, under Related. See Link records to each other.

On a computer, the arrows at the top of the panel, or the Up and Down keys, move to the next or previous record. The panel shows where you are, such as “3 of 25”. To open the record on its own page, click Open full page (the expand icon) at the top of the panel. See Work a record.

Edit fields in the table

You can edit in the table only on a computer.

Click a cell to select it. Then:

• Press Enter, or double-click, to change it.
• Start typing to replace the value.
• Press Backspace or Delete to clear it. You can’t clear a required field.
• Press Tab or the arrow keys to move to another cell.

Some cells open for editing on one click: pick-from-a-list fields, numbers, dates, long text and fields that point to other records.

Most changes save when you press Enter or click somewhere else. A few fields work differently:

• Pick-from-a-list field: pick an option. For a field that allows several, each tick saves.
• Field that points to another record: pick one. If the field holds several records, it stays open so you can pick more.
• Date: click a day. For a date with a time, pick the day, set the time, then click Done or press Enter.
• Long text: click Save, or press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac).

Press Escape to cancel. For a date or long text, clicking somewhere else also cancels, so click Done or Save first.

Edit several fields in one form

To change several fields in one go:

1. Click More actions (the three dots) at the top of the panel.
2. Choose Edit all fields.
3. Change the fields you need.
4. Click Save Changes (Save on the full record page). The record shows your new values.

Click Cancel instead to drop your changes.

Change a record’s owner

Each record has an owner: the team member who looks after it. Their name shows next to Owner, under the record’s name, and in the Owner column of the table.

If you’re an admin or a manager, you can change the owner:

1. Click the owner’s name.
2. Pick another member from the list.

The new owner’s name now shows next to Owner. You can also change it the same way from the Owner column in the table.

If your admin has turned on Record sharing and this list isn’t open for everyone to edit, a manager can give a record only to someone in their own part of the team structure. If they pick anyone else, the old owner comes back.

Let Mesy suggest an owner

Admins can pick an owner by who has the most free time:

1. Open the record in the panel or on its full page.
2. Click Suggest owner. The Staff availability window opens, headed “Suggest owner for Priya Raman”.
3. Pick the Date and Duration of the work.
4. In Compare, pick how many days to look across, such as This day or 5 days.
5. Look under Most free for this request for the people with the most free working time.
6. Click Assign to under the person you choose, such as Assign to Wei Ling.

The window says “Assigned Priya Raman to Wei Ling.” Wei Ling now owns the record.

To learn how Mesy works out free time, see Check who is free and set working hours.

Add or remove tags

Tags are short labels your team uses to sort records. They show under the record’s name.

To add one, click + after the tags and pick a tag from the list. To remove one, click the × on it.

Create and manage tags

Admins and managers create the tags:

1. Click Admin in the sidebar (Manager if you’re a manager).
2. Click the Organization tab.
3. Under Tags, type a name, such as VIP.
4. Pick a colour next to Colour.
5. Click +. The tag shows in the list, with the number of records that use it under Records.

To rename a tag or change its colour, click the pencil, make the change, then click Save. To delete a tag, click the bin. When Mesy asks “Delete this tag?”, click Delete. Mesy removes it from every record.

Delete a record

1. Click More actions (the three dots) at the top of the panel.
2. Choose Delete.
3. When Mesy asks “Delete this record?”, click Delete. The panel closes and the record leaves the list.

In the panel, More actions also has Merge into… for joining two copies of the same record. See Find and merge duplicates.

If something doesn’t work

• If a change goes back to the old value, Mesy couldn’t save it. Its message says why.
• If the message says “You don’t have permission to modify this record”, you don’t own this record and didn’t create it. Ask its owner or a manager.
• If the panel stays open after you confirm Delete, you don’t own this record and didn’t create it. Ask its owner or a manager.
• If Mesy won’t save a value, the value isn’t in the right form. Check the message under the box. An email needs a valid address, and a web address needs a dot and no spaces.
• If Mesy won’t save a phone number, it needs at least one digit. It can use only digits, spaces and + - ( ) . /, up to 50 characters.
• If Mesy won’t save some text, it’s too long. A short text field holds up to 1,000 characters, and a long text field up to 50,000.
• If an email or web address looks different after you save, that’s expected. Mesy saves emails in lower case. It adds https:// to a web address that doesn’t have it.
• If Add New shows an error and adds nothing, this list needs more than a name. Click the list’s New button, such as New Contact, and fill in the full form.
• If you can’t change a deal’s value, the deal has products, so Mesy works out the value from them. It shows “Calculated from products” next to the value. Change the products instead. See Products and line items.
• If the window says “No member with verified availability fits this request.”, nobody is free for that long, or Mesy can’t read their working hours or calendar. Try a shorter Duration or another Date.
• If clicking the owner’s name opens their profile instead of a list, you can’t change the owner. Only admins and managers can.
• If a new tag doesn’t show in the list, Mesy didn’t accept its name. A tag name can use only the letters A to Z (no accents or other scripts), numbers, spaces, - and _, up to 50 characters. It must start with a letter or number, and no two tags can share a name.
• If + next to the tags opens nothing, every tag is already on the record, or your workspace has no tags yet. Ask an admin or a manager to create one.
• If clicking the title does nothing, the title on this list comes from another field. Change that field under Details.