# Consumers

Every request must have at least one consumer  — this is the person (or people) who will utilize the services of the request.  Usually, each individual consumer would be listed separately as a request can have more than one; however, a consumer can be listed as a group of people (e.g., "general public").  

All consumers are saved in the customer's account settings area and their names and details can be updated: <https://app.octoo.com/settings/requests-consumers>

### Visibility

By default, consumer names are *only* visible to confirmed providers.  Providers being considered for a request will not be able to see the consumer names until they have been confirmed.

Consumer information is also visible to the partner facilitating the request and the team members belonging to the customer account.

{% hint style="info" %}
If a customer account requires additional visibility restrictions (or would like to enable consumer names to be visible even to considered providers) this setting can be updated on a per customer basis.
{% endhint %}

### Identifiers

In addition to a name and an email address, a consumer can have additional *identifiers* (such as a medical record number).  This information is optional.

### Contacting by email

When a consumer is added an email address may also be recorded.  Additionally, there is a checkbox to indicate whether or not it is okay for the request partner to contact the consumer as needed. &#x20;

{% hint style="info" %}
If a customer account has a consumers they would like **automatically** notified by email about any request-related activity (e.g., requests made, providers assigned, etc) please contact the account partner to turn this feature on.  This is still a beta feature and available upon request.
{% endhint %}


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