Activity Management in Salesforce

It is challenging to keep track of your activities in an organization with multiple teams. Activity management in Salesforce makes all the processes run smoothly. It can track your interactions with leads and clients on almost all communication channels.

To keep a record of these interactions, Salesforce has activities such as tasks and events. Activities in Salesforce are available to each organization user, making it a versatile tool. Using this feature can be helpful, as you can personalize it to your requirements and receive better reports. 

What are Activities in Salesforce?

Activities in Salesforce prioritize your time and keep you up with your accounts, campaigns, contacts, leads, and opportunities. There is no Activities (Tasks or Events) tab in Salesforce.

Activities can be created on Contract, Order, Campaign, Account, Opportunity, Product, Asset, Case, Solution, Coaching, Goal, and Metric standard objects.

Also, custom objects with the “Allow Activities” checkbox checked can have activities applied to them. Remember that Salesforce Activities are not standalone objects, but they represent both tasks and events that have theri own API, fields, and page layouts.

The Salesforce Activities data model consists of two objects: Salesforce tasks and Salesforce events. These tasks and events in Salesforce act as record types, storing information for different things. Both of these objects fall under Activities in the user interface, but they differ significantly in terms of the API.

Even in the setup menu under Activities, they both have their own field list, validation rules, buttons & links, page layouts, etc. We can add a field to the activity field list that will appear on both the Task & Event pages.

Salesforce Tasks

A task is an object in itself that is used to assign a business activity, such as making a phone call or other to-do items, with a target end date. You can relate your tasks to leads, contracts, campaigns, etc. It helps you increase productivity and keep your to-do list organized.

Salesforce Event and Calendars

An event is also an object that represents a calendar item, such as a meeting or conference, which has a Start and end Date/Time. It usually involves other persons, who are called invitees.

Necessary fields in Salesforce Tasks & Events

In each task or event, some fields help to keep the information about that task or event. Here are some of the important fields: 

1. Subject

The subject field in activities is a combo box that behaves like a lookup field but looks like a picklist.

2. Related To

This field’s API name is ‘WhatId,’ and it defines which object a particular task or event is related to. These objects can be any custom objects that support activities, and all standard objects on which they can be created. This field is polymorphic.

3. Assigned To

This field’s API name is OwnerID. For tasks, it defines which User or Calendar the task is assigned to. For events, it specifies which User or Calendar is the event’s host.

4. Due Date (Only On Task)

This field’s API name is ActivityDate and represents the date the task should be completed.

5. Status (Only On Task)

This field describes the task’s status, such as “In Progress,” “Not Started,” or “Completed.”

6. Name

This field’s API name is WhoID. It is also polymorphic, allowing tasks to be related to a lead or contact.

7. Start & End Date/Time (Only On Event)

This field indicates the start & end date/time of the event.

8. All-Day Event (Only On Task)

It is a checkbox that, if checked, turns off the End Date/Time field for the event, making it an entire-day event. 

9. Recurring series of Tasks

This field helps them to create recurring events or tasks daily/weekly/monthly/yearly, using recurrence fields.

Invitees are users, leads, or contacts who are invited to a particular event. When we save the event and send them the update, they receive an email that lets them accept or decline the request, which then appears in the Accepted & Declined related list on the event’s detail page.

Related Lists in Salesforce Activity Management

Related lists appear on the object’s page layout, which allows activities to be performed on it. Tasks assigned to users are visible on the My Tasks-related list on their homepage.

Events for which a particular user is an invitee are visible in the calendar list on the home page. There are two related lists on the page layout:

1. Open Activities: This related list displays all open tasks and events for the record and its associated records.
2. Activity History: This related list displays all the completed tasks, logged phone calls, expired events, outbound emails, mass emails, and merged documents for the record and its associated records.

Limitations with Activities

• Notes & Attachments cannot be added to activities.
• Custom fields, such as extended text areas or rich text areas, cannot be added to activities.
• Tasks cannot be assigned to a queue.

Note:

• To enable activity management on a particular object, you can select the Allow Activities checkbox while creating the object.
• In activities, we can also log a call (which stores conversations related to a particular record) and send an email.