We know you will often assign agent "owners" to Tern contacts so they can more easily plan trips for them. But in many cases, we know that your agency is technically the long term owner of that contact. In cases where an agent leaves, you want to make sure they don't have the ability to remove your access to that contact.

This article walks through Tern's 'agency-managed contact' setting, which lets you lock down an agent's ability to remove your access to that contact in Tern. We also have smart defaults to ensure any contacts you create as an agency admin will be locked down automatically.

Any new contacts created in Tern will be automatically shared with the agent's default agency. This means you'll have full access to view all contacts details, edit the contact, add them as a traveler, and access their information in reporting.

For more information on contact collaboration, see this help center article.

You'll notice a "Agency-managed contact" toggle right below the agency sharing section, on all contacts shared with your agency.

When this setting is enabled, the agent who owns the contact can't remove your agency's access from that contact. As an agency admin, you always have the ability to toggle it "off" for any reason.

By default, as an agency admin, any contact you create or import will be "agency managed". In these cases we assume that these contacts are owned long-term by your agency.

When importing in bulk, you'll notice a new column for the 'agency managed' setting. If you leave it blank, we'll assume it should be ON (meaning all imported contacts will be 'agency-managed'. If you don't want this setting on for any reason, you can toggle it to "no".

You will also see this toggle, to mark a contact as agency-managed. You may be instructed to do so by your agency owner, depending on how their ownership policies work.

If you or your agency admin has enabled this toggle, you won't see the ability to remove your agency's access from this contact. If you believe this was done in error, please contact your agency administrator.

By default, any new contact you create or import will not be 'agency-managed'. You'll see the option to toggle it on when creating new contacts.