What is a Department contact?
When an outside caller reaches out to a Shared Line such as a Department, Main Line, or Contact Center, Dialpad creates a 'Department Contact' for that caller — this applies to calls, messages, and faxes.
You may have noticed that, when searching for a contact, their name appears in the Personal Contacts and the Group Contacts tabs.
In this case, Justin Herrick is not only a personal contact of this user but also someone who's interacted with the company's Shared Lines.
What happens when a personal contact interacts with a Shared Line?
Any contact that interacts with a Shared Line will create a Department contact that can be edited by Admins as well as Operators or Agents assigned to the Shared Line.
Why am I seeing a Department contact that says it is a shared contact created by someone else on my team?
Dialpad does not create new shared Department contacts anymore, but for existing customers prior to this change: in the case where a user's personal contact also ends up interacting with a Shared Line, Dialpad creates a shared Department contact.
What's the difference? With a Department contact, both Admins and Operators or Agents can directly edit contact information (like phone number or name).
With a shared Department contact, only the Admin, Operator, or Agent that has that caller saved as their own personal contact will be able to directly edit contact information.