Actors

Actors & Communication

The Actors module maps every person involved in a contract to their party and role, then structures your communication channels to ensure the right people are copied on the right notices.

The three parties

Every actor belongs to one of three teams. This determines how they appear in the communication matrix and which side of the contract they represent.

Team Description

Client The contracting authority — the party who issued the contract and who pays.

Contractor The executing party — the one responsible for delivering the scope.

Observer Third parties — engineers, lenders, insurers, subcontractors — who participate in communication but are not a primary contracting party.

Actor fields

Field Description

First / Last name Required. Used for display and for generating initials in the matrix.

Role / Title Required. The person's function (e.g. "Project Director", "Contract Manager").

Company Optional. Useful when multiple entities sit within the same party.

Email Required. Used to match incoming emails and to generate mailto: links in channels.

Phone Optional contact number.

Source clause Optional link to the contract clause that designates this actor (for traceability).

Adding actors

There are two ways to add actors to a contract:

Manually

Click Add actor on the Actors page. A two-step form asks for the party assignment first, then the contact details. The actor is immediately active.

From an imported email thread

When you upload an email thread, Belfort parses the From, To and CC headers and flags any email address not yet in the contract. A review modal lets you select which unknown participants to add and assign them to a team. These actors start with a pending status until confirmed.

Communication channels

A communication channel represents a named notice type defined in the contract — formal notices, claims, operational reports, site instructions, etc. Each channel has its own recipient list, independent of the others.

Channel types available: Formal, Claim, Operational, Technical, Site, Custom.

The communication matrix

The matrix view shows channels as rows and actors as columns. Each cell indicates whether an actor is a primary recipient, copied, or blind-copied on that channel:

Role Meaning

TO Primary recipient — the actor the notice is formally addressed to.

CC Copied — the actor receives the notice for information.

BCC Blind copy — the actor receives the notice without other recipients knowing.

— Not involved in this channel.

Click the pencil icon to enter edit mode and cycle through roles directly in the matrix. Use the column filter to hide irrelevant actors and focus on the parties that matter for each channel.

Generating a notice email

Once a channel is configured, Belfort can generate a pre-filled mailto: link that opens your email client with the correct To, CC and BCC recipients already populated.

One click to the right people

This ensures every formal notice is sent to the contractually designated recipients — reducing the risk of sending to the wrong person or forgetting a required copy.

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