How to Assign Contact Owners in Alivo
Put the right team member in charge of a lead and control who gets notified.
A contact owner is the team member responsible for a lead. In Alivo, every contact can have one owner, and that assignment controls who sees the contact and who gets notified when something happens. This guide covers how to set an owner, the different ways ownership gets assigned, and what it means for your team's notifications.
How to Assign an Owner
You can set or change the owner on any contact from a few places:
- Add Contact dialog. Pick an owner when you create a new contact manually.
- Edit Contact dialog. Change the owner on an existing contact.
- Audience table. Click the Owner column inline and pick a team member. You may need to add the Owner column through Table Settings if it is not visible yet.
- Contact detail page. Update the owner from the contact info section.
- Automations. Set up an automation with the Assign owner action to assign owners automatically when a trigger fires (for example, when a new lead comes in from a specific source).
What Happens for Sales Reps
If a team member has the Sales Rep role, owner assignment works a little differently:
- Auto-assigned on create. When a Sales Rep adds or updates a contact, they are automatically set as the owner.
- Only see their own contacts. A Sales Rep only sees contacts they own in the Audience table, conversation views, and Live Activity.
- Cannot take over another rep's contact. If a phone number already belongs to another rep's contact, the Sales Rep cannot reassign it to themselves.
Company Admins and Members see all contacts regardless of who owns them.
What Owner Assignment Does to Notifications
Owner assignment does not turn on a special "notify the owner" switch. Instead, it controls which Sales Reps receive notifications for a given contact. Here is how it works:
For Contacts With an Owner
- Sales Reps only get notifications for contacts they own. If you are a Sales Rep and someone else owns the contact, you will not be notified even if you are subscribed to that notification type.
- Company Admins and Members get notifications based on their own notification preferences, regardless of who owns the contact.
For Contacts With No Owner
- Sales Reps are excluded from all notifications for that contact, because they cannot see unowned contacts anyway.
- Company Admins and Members still receive notifications per their settings.
Heads up: Notifications are based on what each team member has subscribed to under Settings → Team → Edit User. Owner assignment filters which Sales Reps are eligible. It does not automatically notify the owner unless they are subscribed to that notification type.
Notification Types Your Team Can Subscribe To
Each team member chooses which events they want to be notified about. Common ones tied to contact activity include:
| Notification | When It Fires |
|---|---|
| New Leads | A new lead starts an inbound conversation. |
| Reply (AI On) | The AI sends a reply on your behalf. |
| Reply (AI Off) | A contact replies and the conversation needs a manual response. |
| Assistance Needed | The AI flags that a human should step in. |
| Goal Met (All Campaigns) | An agent completes a goal like booking an inspection or getting a document signed. |
| Left Voicemail | A contact leaves a voicemail. |
| Event Scheduled / Rescheduled / Canceled | Calendar events tied to the contact change. |
| Task (Follow Up) | A follow-up task is assigned to you. |
Task notifications are always sent to the person the task is assigned to, regardless of contact ownership.
Per-Agent Notification Filtering
Team members can also limit notifications to specific agents. If a user has turned off "notifications for all agents" and only subscribed to certain agents, they will only be notified about conversations on those agents. This applies to everyone, including the contact owner.
CRM Default Owner vs. Alivo Owner
If you have a CRM connected (like JobNimbus), you may see a Default Owner setting in your CRM integration setup. That setting controls which CRM user gets assigned when Alivo syncs data to your CRM. It is separate from the Owner field on contacts inside Alivo.
To set who owns a contact in Alivo itself, use the Owner field on the contact or an automation with the Assign owner action.
Putting It Together
A simple setup that works for most roofing teams:
- Assign owners manually or via automation as soon as a lead comes in, so every contact has someone responsible.
- Give Sales Reps the Sales Rep role so they only see and get notified about their own leads.
- Have Admins or office staff handle unowned leads and company-wide oversight.
- Review notification subscriptions under Settings → Team so each person gets the alerts they actually need.
Owner assignment is the simplest way to keep a busy team from stepping on each other. Put the right person on each contact, and Alivo handles the rest: the rep sees only their leads, gets notified about their leads, and everyone else stays out of their way.
Still have a question this didn't answer? Reach out to our support team support@alivo.ai and we'll be glad to help.