Activities and “My activities”

An activity keeps track of what happens with a customer or a prospect: a note, a task to do, a call, a meeting or an email exchanged. It is always attached to an account and, optionally, to contacts and an opportunity. This article explains how to create an activity, follow your work in “My activities”, complete, follow up or delete an activity, and what private activities are for. It is intended for sales representatives, their managers and CRM administrators.

Before you start #

• The CRM module must be enabled for your workspace and open to you (see Enabling and administering the CRM module).
• Permissions in the role matrix, CRM menu: “CRM activities — View” to see My activities, the Activities tab of records and an activity’s record; “CRM activities — Create” for New activity and Follow-up task; “CRM activities — Edit” to edit other people’s activities; “CRM activities — Delete” to delete. The Access level is enough.
• An activity is within your scope when its author, its assignee or one of its internal participants is. With the Mine scope, you see the activities you wrote, those assigned to you and those you take part in. Scopes are set per role in the CRM scopes card (see CRM settings).

Activity types #

The type is chosen from a list. Five of its standard types decide what you are asked to enter:

Type	What you enter	Status when created
Note	A content; the title is optional.	Done
Task	A title, a due date, a priority, an assignee and a reminder.	To do
Call, Meeting	A title, a date and time, a duration, a place or a video link, an outcome, internal participants and a report.	To do, or Done if the date has already passed
Email	A subject, a sending date and the email body: it is an email already exchanged, which you log.	Done

The list also includes the standard Decision type: it works like a note, with a Decision date as well.

Your administrator can add other types, such as “Site visit” or “Demo”. Each one follows the behaviour of one of the five standard types, shown under the list when you choose it. Types are set in Settings › CRM › CRM settings (see CRM settings).

My activities #

Open CRM › My activities. The page gathers what you have to do: the tasks assigned to you, and the calls and meetings you wrote or take part in as an internal participant. Notes and emails do not appear there.

The List view, open by default, sorts these activities into three groups, each with its count:

• Overdue: activities still to do whose day has passed. The group title turns red as soon as it contains one.
• Today: today’s activities, including those already done.
• Upcoming: activities to do on the following days, fifty at most.

While a colleague who named you as their stand-in is on approved leave, a Standing in for … — today group is added: their tasks for the day, except private ones, which you can read but not change. You also receive their reminders.

Each row shows the type, the moment (a task’s due date, a call’s or meeting’s date and time), the assignee, the account and the contacts, plus the Overdue, High priority, Private and Done markers. Click the title to open the activity; the Complete button marks it as done without opening it.

The Calendar view shows one week, Monday to Sunday, including activities already done, and highlights the current day. Move from week to week with Previous week and Next week; This week brings you back to the present. The chosen view and week are stored in the page address.

Creating an activity #

You can create an activity from My activities, or from the Activities tab of an account, a contact or an opportunity. From a record, what is already known is filled in: the account; on a contact, that contact and their main account; on an opportunity, that opportunity and its account.

1. Click New activity.
2. Choose the Type. A task is suggested by default.
3. If the account is not filled in, search for it under Account (at least two characters). It cannot change afterwards.
4. If needed, link an Opportunity of the account. The list offers those you can read, open or closed; it only appears when the account has some.
5. Enter the Title, or the Subject for an email. It is optional for a note.
6. Fill in the fields specific to the type (see below).
7. Under Contacts, search for the people involved by name, email or phone.
8. Tick Private if other people must not see the activity (see below).
9. Click Create the activity.

The fields specific to each type:

• Task: the Due date, required, and its Time; the Priority (Low, Normal, High); Assigned to, which stays yourself if you leave Me; the Reminder: No reminder, The day before, or At a chosen time, which asks for the Reminder time.
• Call and Meeting: the Date and time, required; the Duration (minutes); the Place; the Video link, an address starting with http:// or https://; the Outcome (Reached, Voicemail, Call back, No answer, Wrong number, Postponed, Cancelled); the Internal participants, chosen among your colleagues; the Report.
• Note: the Content, required.
• Email: the Sent on date, which is now if you leave it empty, and the Email body.

The Assigned to list offers yourself, then the colleagues within your scope for editing activities who have an active account and can read CRM activities: with the Mine scope, only you. The chosen colleague is told in their notifications.

An activity’s record #

Click an activity’s title, in a list or a timeline, to open its record. The Details block shows its information: a task’s due date, assignee, priority and reminder; a call’s or meeting’s date, duration, place, video link, outcome and participants; the contacts, the Author and, for an activity that is done, Done on with the person’s name. A follow-up task shows Follow-up of, with a link to the original activity. The second block shows the text: content, description, report or email body.

The record’s buttons:

• Complete marks an activity to do as done.
• Reopen sets a done activity back to do.
• Follow-up task, on a call or a meeting, creates in one click a task named “Follow-up:” followed by the original title, due tomorrow, assigned to you, on the same account, with the original contacts you can read and the same opportunity, then opens it. Edit it afterwards if needed.
• Edit opens the entry window. The account does not change, and the type can only be replaced by a type of the same kind: a task stays a task.
• Delete removes the activity and its attachments, after confirmation. The CRM log keeps a record of the deletion.

On a call or a meeting, the With AI block is added when CRM AI is enabled in your workspace.

Who can do what #

• An activity’s author can always edit, complete and reopen it.
• A task’s assignee can edit and complete it as long as it is not done, even without the edit permission. Once the task is done, only its author and people with the edit permission can still change it.
• Anyone else needs “CRM activities — Edit”, with a scope that reaches the author or the assignee.
• Deleting requires “CRM activities — Delete”, with a scope that reaches the author or the assignee. The author needs it too.
• The follow-up task requires “CRM activities — Create”.

Attachments #

Notes, calls and meetings have an Attachments block. Click Upload a file: 20 MB at most, in PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument (text or spreadsheet), CSV, text, PNG or JPEG format. Uploading and removing a file require being able to edit the activity; reading it is enough to download.

Private activities #

A Private activity is read only by its author, its internal participants and the assignee. For everyone else, administrators included, it does not exist: it appears neither in lists, nor in Activities tabs, nor in the timelines of accounts, contacts and opportunities. Those who can see it recognise it by the Private marker.

A follow-up task created from a private activity is private too.

Reminders, overdue tasks and notices #

• Task reminder: “The day before” is sent the day before the due date, at the due time, or at 9 am if there is none; “At a chosen time” is sent at the reminder time. The assignee receives it once in their notifications, titled “CRM: task reminder”. A task that is done never gets one. Changing the due date or the reminder time sets it again.
• Overdue task: from the day after the due date, the assignee receives “CRM: task overdue” once.
• Assigned task: when a colleague assigns you a task, when creating it or by changing the assignee, you receive “CRM: a task was assigned to you”.
• Morning summary: Monday to Friday, an email can list your tasks for today and the overdue ones. It is off by default. An administrator turns it on in Settings › Manage Illizeo › Email, template “CRM — morning summary: your tasks for today and overdue ones (off by default)”. Nothing is sent to someone with no task that day.

These notices give the task’s title and, only if you can read it, the account’s name; never its content. Everyone can turn them off in Personal Settings › Notifications, row “CRM — activities: assigned tasks, reminders, overdue tasks”.

Contacts who refuse a channel #

When a contact has ticked “Do not call”, a call still to do with them is refused, both when it is created and when it is reopened. The window says so: “This contact does not want to be called.”. A call that has already taken place, which you log afterwards, is always accepted. Notes, tasks, meetings and logged emails are never refused for this reason. A contact’s preferences are set on their record (see Managing contacts and Protecting contact data (GDPR)).

Good to know #

• An activity’s opportunity must belong to the activity’s account.
• A contact you cannot read appears as “Contact not visible”. You can neither see nor remove them, and they stay linked when you change the list of contacts.
• An activity outside your scope, or private, is shown as if it did not exist: “This activity does not exist, or it is outside your scope.”
• The CRM log keeps the creation, changes and deletion of an activity. For the text, only the fact that it changed is recorded.

FAQ #

A task I created does not appear in My activities. #

My activities only shows the tasks assigned to you. A task you wrote for a colleague appears in their activities, and in the account’s Activities tab.

My call went straight to Done. #

A call or meeting whose date and time have already passed when it is created is recorded as done: it logs an exchange that took place. To plan a call, choose a future date.