Northwoods Outfitters tracks 213 contacts across three guide programs. Their admin Mei Lin uses three tags — "Summer lead", "Returning guest", and "Corporate inquiry" — to filter the list down to exactly the segment she needs. She set them up once in CRM settings, and now any admin, owner, or advisor on the team can apply them in a click.
Here's how tags and contact sources work and how to set them up.
Before you start
- Creating or editing tags and sources requires admin, owner, or advisor role. These roles manage them in CRM module settings.
- Applying or removing tags on a contact requires admin, owner, or advisor role (it's part of
crm.contacts.manage, the same permission that gates contact edits) — contributor can view tags but not attach or remove them. - The CRM module must be enabled. Go to Settings → Modules and confirm CRM is toggled on.
Part 1: Set up tags in CRM settings
Step 1: Open CRM module settings
Click Settings in the sidebar, then navigate to Modules → CRM (or go directly to /settings/modules/crm). If you don't see a settings entry for CRM, you do not have admin access.
Step 2: Create a tag
Scroll to the Tags section. Click New tag. A dialog opens with two fields:
- Name — for example, "VIP", "Lead", or "Returning client"
- Color — a color picker to give the tag a distinct color in the UI. Tags with custom colors appear as tinted badges throughout the contacts list and contact detail pages.
Click Create tag. The tag appears in the list immediately.
Step 3: Edit or delete tags
Each existing tag shows a pencil icon and a trash icon. Click the pencil to rename the tag or change its color inline. Click the trash icon to delete the tag — this removes it from all contacts that have it, but does not delete those contacts.
Part 2: Set up contact sources
Contact sources record how a contact was acquired — for example "Referral", "Website", or "Walk-in". They appear as a dropdown on the contact create and edit forms.
In the same CRM settings page, scroll to the Sources section. Click New source, enter a name, and save. Sources have names only — no color.
If you delete a source after contacts have been assigned to it, those contacts show "Removed source" in italics on their detail page rather than crashing or losing the record.
Part 3: Apply tags to a contact
Tags are live — you don't need to click Edit to add or remove them.
Open any contact's detail page (click a row in /crm/contacts). Find the Tags card in the right column. Tags already on the contact appear as colored chips. Click a chip to remove it. Below a separator, any tags not yet applied to this contact are listed — click one to add it. The change saves immediately.
You can also apply tags at creation time if you've already set up tags: they appear as a multi-select in the New contact dialog.
Part 4: Filter by tag on the Contacts page
On /crm/contacts, tag filter chips appear above the contacts table when at least one tag exists. Click a chip to show only contacts with that tag. Click the chip again to clear the filter. Only one tag filter is active at a time.
What to do next
With contacts organized, you can use the pipeline board to move tagged contacts through stages. See How to build and manage deal pipelines for that flow.