Answer a contact's data request
1. Record the request
When a contact asks for a copy of the data your workspace holds about them, an owner or admin records it on the contact's page. Nobody else sees the button.
- Open Contacts in the sidebar and press the person's name.
- Press Answer a data request for this person.
- Enter the date the request reached you. Your time to answer starts on that date.
- Say whether you checked who is asking, then press Record the request. You may be asked to sign in again first.
The request's own page opens. A contact can have one open request at a time; if they already have one, the page says so and links to it.
2. Find your open requests
Open the account menu, choose Administration, then Data and import. Under Data requests from contacts, the open requests are listed soonest due first, each with the date it arrived and the date the answer is due. An overdue request says so. Closed requests are under one line with their count. Press a name to open its request.
The list is shown only to someone who signed in recently. If you signed in a while ago, the panel says so instead; press Sign in again to see them and sign in to see the list.
3. Check what the copy will hold
Under What the copy will hold, every item that goes in the copy is listed by section: messages, details recorded about the person, deals, notes that name them and so on. Each says how it was found: they sent or received it, it is filed on them, or it mentions them.
Leave an item out only when giving it would harm someone else, or it is otherwise exempt. Tick Leave this out, choose why, and add a note if you want one; for another reason the note is required. The note stays with the record of the request and is not in the copy. The person sees how many items were left out and the kind of reason.
4. Download the copy
Under Download the copy you see how many items go in and how many are left out. You can add a line saying why your workspace uses this data; it is written into the copy. Press Download the copy. If an item you ticked has no reason yet, nothing is downloaded and the page says the reason is missing.
If names or addresses saved on the contact were too long, or too many, to search, they are listed under Names and addresses not searched, because messages that mention them may be missing from the copy. Shorten them on the contact's page and reload this page, or tick I accept that messages mentioning these may be missing from the copy; until you do, nothing is downloaded. If what the copy would hold changed after you previewed it, nothing is downloaded either: reload the page, read the list again and download.
The file is one ZIP: the data about them, each email as a file of its own, and a guide to each part. We don't keep the file, and each download is recorded with what was left out. Send the file to the person yourself.
5. Close the request
Downloading does not close the request. Under Close the request, choose how it ended:
- Sent: the date you sent the copy, and which download you sent.
- Refused or Withdrawn: the reason, kept with the record of the request.
Press Close the request. A closed request shows how it ended and nothing more to press.
6. When PetalCRM passes a request on to you
A person who is a contact of your workspace, and not a user of PetalCRM, may ask PetalCRM directly whether it holds data about them. We tell them that your workspace holds data under their email address, give them its name and web address, and email every owner and administrator of your workspace: it names the address, the day they asked and that your workspace answers. We give them no copy of anything.
Treat that day as the day the request reached you. We have not confirmed who asked, so check that before you share anything, then answer it with the steps above.