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 for each user of the organization, making it a versatile tool. Utilizing this feature can be helpful as you can personalize it as per your requirements and receive better reports. 

What are Activities in Salesforce?

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

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

Also, the custom objects whose “Allow Activities” checkbox is checked can have activities on them. Remember that Salesforce Activities are not objects.

The Salesforce Activities data model is divided into two objects: Salesforce tasks and Salesforce events. These tasks and events act as record types storing information for different things. Both of these objects come under Activities in the user interface, but they are entirely different objects in terms of 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 be added to both Task & Event’s page layout.

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 with 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 can be described as a picklist that looks like a lookup field and behaves like a text field.

2. Related To

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

3. Assigned To

This field’s API name is OwnerID, and it defines to which User, Calendar, or Group the task or to which User or Calendar event has been assigned.

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 status of the task, such as “In Progress,” “Not Started,” or “Completed.”

6. Name

This field’s API name is WhoID. It is also polymorphic and allows 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.

9. Recurring series of Tasks

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

Invitees are the users, leads, or contacts invited to a particular event. When we save the event and send them the update, they get an email using which they can accept or decline the request, which then will be visible 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 scheduled for which a particular user is an invitee are visible on the calendar-related 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 means we can store conversations related to a particular record) and send an email as well.

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