# Before you Create Records in Portal: Must Know #### Entering Records in the Right Order Because of the way records depend on each other, some records must be created before others. Note the following principles before creating records: 1. **Accountability records** are used to group Companies together for uniform management and filtering as well as accountability reporting. * Accountability records can't be setup in portal, nor can any adjustment to them be made in portal other than assigning new companies to them. 2. **Company records** are the main records. * These can be attached to an accountability group but this is not required. * For a company to be useful beyond contact info, there must be a company owner specified (see contact records) 3. **Contact records** are dependent on company records and / or accountability records. * There can be multiple contact records associated with a single company. * One (no more, no less) contacts must be specified as **company owner**. This contact will be the one responsible to pay the bills for the company and be the designated person to authorize any changes to the account. * All other contacts will be Person contacts, typically associated with a device. * For data integrity these records have constraints on email (required) and mobile phone number (optional) to keep them unique. *If a separate contact is needed for some reason but there is not a unique email or mobile phone number, you may use none@none.com for the email.The mobile phone number is not required.* * Contact records can be linked to multiple Companies. **Note:** This cannot be done in the portal.* * Lastly, contact records can also be associated with accountability records. ***Note:** This cannot be done in the portal.* 4. **Device records** are dependent on a Company record and must be assigned to a Contact record. * Multiple devices can be assigned to the same contact record. * Each device must have a unique filter username and must begin with the username of the contact to which it is assigned. #### Other Notes

Note: In portal you only have access to Companies you are associated with. If you are a company contact you will only have access to the Companies you are a contact for. If you are an accountability contact you will have access to all Companies in your accountability group.