---
title: "Department Contacts FAQs"
slug: "department-contacts-faqs"
updated: 2025-05-14T23:43:29Z
published: 2025-05-14T23:43:29Z
canonical: "help.dialpad.com/department-contacts-faqs"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.dialpad.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Department Contacts FAQs

## **What is a Department contact?**

When an outside caller contacts 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.

![Search result for a user in different Departments.](https://cdn.us.document360.io/0f28ad44-2863-4372-a27e-c6728808d742/Images/Documentation/Department_Contact_Search.png)

In this case, Claudia Aguirre is not only this user's personal contact but also someone who has 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 interacts 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 who has that caller saved as their personal contact will be able to edit contact information directly.

## If a Department updates its contact information, will the changes be reflected in other Departments as well?

Yes! When a Department's contact information is updated, the changes will apply across all other Departments.

## How do Department contacts affect or interact with a coaching team?

Calls to an agent of a coaching team will also create both a personal contact and a shared contact. The shared contact is owned by the coaching team. If you send a message using the coaching team contact, the message is sent using your main line number/Caller ID.