Working with CRM records

Concepts covered

Step breakdown

1. Open CRM recordsStart from the records layer that connects people, companies, deals, and tickets.
2. Review people recordsInspect contact history, ownership, and relationship context.
3. Connect records to workUse CRM context as shared memory for Max assistance and Studio workflows.

What CRM records are for

CRM records are Frontline's durable customer memory. Use them for people, companies, deals, tickets, owners, activity history, and the fields a workflow or Max task needs to trust before acting.

People and Companies are best for identity and relationship context. Deals and Tickets are best for stage-based work where the status changes over time.

Read each object differently

People: confirm who the person is, which company they belong to, what role they have, how they can be contacted, and which owner should follow up.

Companies: review account-level context, related people, company fields, ownership, and whether active deals or tickets exist.

Deals: read pipeline stage, amount, related company, related people, owner, and next action. This is where sales workflow state should be visible.

Tickets: read support status, customer, owner, priority or category fields, and whether the case is waiting on the team or the customer.

Use views, fields, and actions

List views are useful when you need to compare many records by field: People, Companies, emails, owners, roles, or custom columns.

Pipeline views are useful when the work moves through stages: Deals from Lead to Won or Lost, and Tickets from New to Closed.

Use visible-field controls and filters to keep the view focused. Use Actions when the team needs a bulk operation or a controlled record action.

Record types

A record type is a variant inside an object. Use it when the same object needs different field structure or process behavior.

For example, Companies can have a standard Companies record type. If the business later needs a separate Partner, Vendor, or Enterprise Account process, record types let the team keep a shared object while separating fields and workflow logic.

Before a workflow reads or writes CRM

Confirm the object, record type, field names, required fields, owner field, and relationship fields before building the workflow.

If a workflow updates a Deal stage, make sure the stage names match the pipeline. If it creates a Ticket, make sure owner, status, customer, and priority fields are available.

Expected result

A teammate can open one customer record and understand who owns the relationship, what changed, what related work exists, and what Max or Studio did recently.

A workflow can update a record without guessing field names, creating duplicate context, or writing to the wrong object.

Operational playbook

Build this as a small deliverable: define the trigger, source data, owner, expected output, and the exact place the team will review it.

For Working with CRM records, keep the first version narrow enough that a teammate can test it end to end before expanding it into a broader Records system.

Best practices

Start with the operational job before changing configuration. Name the owner, define the trigger or source context, and decide how the result should be reviewed.

Start with one workflow, message, record update, or Max task before expanding. The team should know what changed, who owns it, and how to pause or adjust it.

Troubleshooting

If the result does not match expectation, check the source context first, then permissions, connected integrations, required fields, workflow logs, and any AI-generated output used by downstream steps.

When debugging, open the related CRM record, Max activity, workflow run, or integration log first. Fix the source data or rule before adding more automation.

How to read CRM screens

CRM lives under Work / Records. People and Companies use list-style tables; Deals and Tickets use pipeline columns for stage-based work.

Start with the visible controls: List or Pipeline, Filter, visible-field counts, Actions, Add, row links, field columns, stage totals, and calculations.

Before acting on a record

Before acting on a customer, review the person or company, related deals or tickets, recent activity, ownership, and any workflow or Max-generated context.

If the record is connected to a workflow, make sure the owner, status, relationship fields, and required values are current before the workflow reads or updates it.

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