A Contact Management 'System' based on Siri Shortcuts, Data Jar, Toolbox Pro and OmniFocus


Before you continue reading: I'm not a programmer and who thinks this project is totally nuts: probably it is and if you think so too I kindly ask not to read on and preferably never come back here. there are certainly more elegant, easier, nicer and faster ways to build something like this and why not just download an app from the AppStore like UpHabit? Well, I even tried the latter and I know MS Dynamics as well. Both great applications that I only want to mention, they are like Major League compared to me in Little League.


My motivation for this project is quite simple: I was looking for a lightweight CRM based on iOS. On the one hand, I am a bad contact holder and have to write down things to be done, see my fondness for lists. Secondly, it is precisely in recent months that there has been a need to maintain very regular social contacts when personal meetings cannot happen, every sensible is sheltering in place as much as possible, right? Also an important fact is a personal disposition on my part, which I like to summarize under the heading "Who is lazy must not be dumb": a computer should not ask questions that it answer itself. So why not use the smartphone with an emphasis on "smart"? And I had to try to see if there was anything to do with Siri Shortcuts. At least for my needs it was and to my greater astonishment I am now suddenly standing there with this "system", who would have thought (I didn't)?
So for those few of you who were brave enough to continue reading up to here finally a short overview of all Siri shortcuts for my miniCRM. At the moment, the whole thing consists of seven shortcuts, which I briefly describe and link below.

Here is the overview of all shortcuts:
 - CRM Entry: This shortcut adds a new entry to the CRM - Contact history: what contacts with what content have taken place in the last 90 days? This shortcut lists them. - Check recent entries: a quick look at the last CRM entry of a selected contact. This shortcut goes through the list of contacts, checks who should be contacted again, and creates a list in Omnifocus. The contact history shortcut is integrated here. It is the most elaborate of all shortcuts at the moment and true to the motto runs from above (keyword "smart") this shortcuts is automatically triggered with the help of autocuts.
 - Add a new contact: as the name suggests: here is a new contact added to the CRM? - Change contact: Status of the relationship changes from colleague to customer or the clock frequency of the contacts should be adjusted? This shortcut does this:

The following apps are needed for the "CRM":
 - Apple's Shortcut app
 - Data Jar: there are three directories:
CRM collects all interactions
CRMkontakte includes the names of the contacts, the relationship status and the contact frequency
CRMkontakttypen is a simple list of possible relationship stats.
 - Toolbox Pro for shortcuts (only for sorting in Check Last Entries) -
OmniFocus for the Task Management


Among other things, what is still missing:
 - Elegance: unnecessary entries appear in some menus. For example, if I want to check a contact, I don't need the "new" entry. Variables are still called different throughout the system. I can't put in one go more people than new contacts, etc. There is more the question "where to start?" than "what else needs to be done?" - maybe at some point I'll be able to write all the information independently of Data Jar into files that are in iCloud and thus be independent of another app. What would be most surprising to me would be myself.
 - a proper "manual" or so


Finally, and for the sake of completeness, just the following note: this is pure private pleasure that I am doing here. There are no commercial interests with this tool – how could there? – and I am pleased to receive any constructive contribution to it and happy about anyone who can derive any benefit from this thing. And just wonder or amuse yourself about it... If anyone can really do anything useful with it: this would make me happy, let me know and please please make suggestions for improvement. Thank you very much.