Contact management

Establish & maintain contact management system

Maintaining contact lists during emergencies can be difficult. One single ‘Master’ contact list should be maintained and shared between the WASH sector IMO and Coordinator. Depending on security issues, the contact list might also be shared on the operational website (public or password-protected access). Depending on the context, the contact list

• can be shared by email
• sit within an online document repository (e.g. Drop Box)
• sit in the cloud (e.g. Google Docs, MailChimp, HID).

Consideration needs to be given to use of individual tools for specific emergency situations; more manual solutions will require effort to keep the list up-to- date; online tools may require internet connectivity and licenses.

There are also some useful apps that help you to collect and manage contact information. A smartphone with a camera and suitable app can scan a business card and instantly update the information to a phone contact list. In addition, individual QR codes on stickers can be generated for Cluster members to stick on the back of phones so others can scan the QR code to get an instant upload of the contact to the phone (see more on QR Codes later in the Reporting & dissemination section).