Activity Definitions

What is Tasks vs Events vs Log a Call?

Activity is the general Salesforce term for a record that is a Task or an Event:

1. Tasks - this is for a user’s “to do list” or “have done” list which can include due dates and comments.

2. Events - these track meetings; these are usually face-to-face or digital and can be synced from a user’s Outlook calendar.

Think of them as a “to do” list of tasks and a diary/calendar of events – jobs to complete versus meetings to attend (including past interactions).

Tasks can be further broken down into:

1. Log a Call - most commonly used by sales people. It represents any interaction with a prospect of alumni that has already happened. Log a Call is helpful as it can use different page layouts to a standard New Task and can be optimised for recording interactions quickly. Log a Call will always be used for an interaction that has already taken place. It does not necessarily need to be for a call and can represent other forms of completed interactions.

2. New Task - something that you, or someone else you designate, is going to do in the future. This can be a task to call a prospect to follow up, send a proposal, or send a Thank You.

3. Email - this is used for email exchanges and can be synced directly with Salesforce directly using integration capabilities like Einstein Activity Capture.

Both Tasks and Events can be linked to people (Contacts or Leads but NOT an Account) via the Name field or to an object (Opportunity or Account etc) via the Related To field.

Activity Archiving

Salesforce archives activities using the following conditions:

• Events that ended more than 365 days ago

• Closed tasks due more than 365 days ago

• Closed tasks created more than 365 days ago (if they have no due date)

Salesforce doesn’t archive recurring tasks or events in a series.

Salesforce doesn’t delete archived activities, but you can manually delete them.

If you modify an archived activity such that it no longer meets the archival criteria, it’s no longer considered archived. Salesforce archives the activity again when it meets the criteria in the future.

For example, imagine that a task was created 365 days ago with no due date. It was closed some time earlier and is archived today, 365 days after its creation. Tomorrow, a user edits the task by adding a due date of Jan 1, 2020. Now the task doesn't meet the archive criteria, and is unarchived. The task is rearchived 365 days after Jan 1, 2020, not 365 days after tomorrow, which is the last modified date.

Archived activities can still be viewed and edited in the Activity Timeline and Activity History list. The Activity History list is access by clicking ‘View All’ on the Activity Timeline and shows a printable list of the last 2,000 records of activity. The Activity History list does not include activities from Einstein Activity Capture and cannot show custom fields.

Task Subject Line Customisation

The Subject line on Tasks is unique in that it’s a picklist field that can also accept free text. This means users have the ability to either select from the existing picklist values that can be customised for the organisation (eg “left Voicemail” or “Talked to Contact”) or they can write their own text like “Talked to Liz and arranged a meeting”.

Allowing for free text can make Activities easier to review for users but can make reporting more challenging due to lack of standardised data. Validation rules can be used to restrict the picklist values for all users if needed.

Task Types and Reporting

Rather than using the Subject Line as a reporting source of truth, we can focus our reporting on the “Type” field. This type can be the field that characterises the activity.

The Type field can only be used in standard report types eg “Tasks and Events” or “Activities with…”. Type cannot be added to custom report types.

Salesforce Shared Activities

There is a setting called Shared Activities that allows Events and Tasks to be related to up to 50 contacts. This would be helpful for meetings or emails that have been attended by multiple prospects as opposed to creating multiple Events or Tasks that are only linked to a single contact.

When enabled Shared Activities will link an activity to each contact’s primary account.

If you enable Shared Activities, the last activity date on account records is based on the activities that roll up to the account via the Related To field. However, if the Related To field is blank, the activities are based on the primary contact’s account. The last activity date for contacts and leads is based on only the activities where the contact or lead is the primary contact on the activity.

If you enable Shared Activities, users must designate one contact as the primary contact on the activity. If you delete the primary contact, the next contact on the activity’s related list becomes the new primary contact. Or you can manually edit the activity to select a primary contact. Lists and reports display primary and secondary contacts differently.

If you don’t enable Shared Activities and a sales rep sends an email to multiple contacts, Salesforce creates a closed task for each contact. As a result, Salesforce creates duplicate records instead of just one task corresponding to the email.

You cannot relate multiple contacts to a recurring task series.

Activities Roll Up from Contact to Account

The account an activity rolls up to depends on the Related To field, the Name field, the Shared Activities setting, and if the setting for Roll up activities to a contact's primary account is enabled.

If the roll up settings are enabled, it uses the following logic:

• When you change the roll up setting, only new activities are affected. Existing activities are only affected if they’re updated in a way that causes the roll up to be recalculated, such as when an activity is closed.

• If the relationship in the Related To field is to an account, opportunity, contract, or custom object that has an account parent to the entity, the activity rolls up to that entry. Activities that roll up to an account via the Related To field determine the last activity date on the account.

  • The Name field on activities is ignored when determining an account’s last activity date, if the activity is related to an account.

• If the Related To field is blank, the setting for Roll up activities to a contact's primary account determines whether this activity establishes the last activity date of the primary contact's primary account.

• The last activity date for contacts and leads is based on the activities where the contact or lead is the primary contact on the activity.

• If you create an activity while converting a lead but don’t create an opportunity from the lead, the activity doesn’t roll up to the lead’s primary account regardless of what’s specified by the activity rollup setting.

Record and Activity Relationships

An activity’s Related To field helps determine an activity’s relationship to an account.

If Shared Activities is enabled, then an activity is also related to each contact’s primary account.

Activity Access

Salesforce has designed a users access to Activity using logic that can be found here. This logic will be relevant depending on how widely read/write permissions should be given for all users. If we design permissions around all users being able to read and edit all Activity then there will likely be no issues with visibility.

Activity Timeline

Activity Timeline is an interactive timeline view of all activities related to the object.

The Activity Timeline will not display custom fields.

The Activity Timeline can be customised to show information in a certain order, but it will always display certain fields that Salesforce considers to be essential. For example, suppose that you remove the due date, the date and time, or the task status fields from a compact layout. The event start date and time, the task checkbox, the task due date, and the call logging date still appear on activities in the activity timeline.

The Activity Timeline shows activities linked via the Name field (contact or lead) and the Related To field (account, opportunity, etc). Custom lookups for other fields eg a custom lookup relationship field called Account on a Task means they won’t appear on the Activity Timeline but will be included in Account Activities.

The Activity Timeline can be filtered by users. When Einstein Activity Capture is turned on, the default Date Range filter becomes within 2 months as opposed to all time. Overdue tasks are always shows, regardless of what the date range filter is.

Sorting Past Activities can cause confusion. Sorting by Due Date can be misleading if the Task or Event was completed AFTER the due date. Sorting by Completed Date can potentially be a more accurate version of the activity history.

Dynamic Activity Composer

Dynamic Activity Composer is a new feature from the Spring '23 release that features a new and improved user interface for logging activity. It docks the activity at the bottom of the page, allowing users to browse other records while logging their activity. Admins can customise it by adding pre-configured actions to each activity button which can further enhance the activity logging productivity.

Activity Reminders

Users have some flexibility when it comes to Activity Reminders. In personal settings a user can change some defaults like whether they receive reminders, whether they get emailed when they are assigned a task, or what time a reminder should default to.

Activity reminders refresh every 10 minutes. For example, if a user schedules a reminder to display 1 hour before an event, the user must save changes at least 1 hour and 10 minutes before the event to see those changes on the reminder.

Task Queues and Activities

Some teams may benefit from creating and assigning Activities to their team Queue. If a Task can be accomplished by any member in the team then they can review their team queue and assign the Task to themselves as the record owner to complete the work.

If you add the Assigned To field to your custom activities report, you can’t see tasks assigned to queues. To see tasks in queues, remove the Assigned To field.

Field History Tracking for Activities

As of the Spring '23 Salesforce release we can turn on tracking for up to six fields in Activities. This is tracked in the Activity History related list.

Task Assignment

• Tasks can only have one owner at a time. If you reassign the task to someone else, it no longer appears in your task list.

• By default, a task is assigned to the person who creates it. You can assign independent copies of a new task to multiple people, when you create the task.

• When a user is assigned a task, they get a notification in the notification bell. When members of a group are assigned, each group member will receive that notification.

Create a Follow-Up Task

There’s a button on tasks called “Create Follow-Up Tasks” which carries over some core information like Assigned To, Name, and Related To. This button does not create any relationship link between the new task and the old task.

Recurring Tasks

Recurring tasks can be helpful for repetitive activities eg making weekly updates to all opportunities for accurate pipeline forecasting.

There is a limit for how many recurring tasks can be created in a series, this limit is based on the task frequency. There is a button under the frequency selection that lets users calculate the latest date for tasks in the series. This will require training for users as it’s not very intuitive.

You can’t relate multiple contacts to a recurring task series.

You can’t create recurring tasks in bulk.

Repeat a Task

Salesforce has an alternative to Recurring Tasks called Repeat a Task. A recurring task requires users to create a series with specific due dates that are created all at once. Repeat a Task only creates the next task in the series when the current task is due or marked as completed.

Task Bulk Creation

Tasks can be created in bulk but can only be assigned to 200 users at a time. This can be helpful to create a task for all DOs asking them to update their pipeline. To support this activity we should consider creating Groups for the different teams to quickly assign tasks.

Hardcoded Mobile App Activity Fields

Salesforce has hard-coded specific fields on Tasks in the Mobile App:

• Subject

• Comments

• Name

• Related To

• Due Date

Salesforce Features we can use with Activities

• The Assistant component can be added to the Home Page and will surface ten records that the user should be working on that has incomplete activities or no activities associated with them like Opportunities. It also highlights overdue Opportunities that should be updated.

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  Screenshot of Assistant in Sandbox

   

• The To Do list can be added to the utility bar for a lightning app. This component lets users sort, filter, and group tasks. It also supports custom labels. This tool would be helpful for DOs when prioritising their outreach. To implement this TAP would need to move from the Affinaquest lightning app to a non-managed lightning app. The Sales lightning app would be ideal as Salesforce is building new functionality that could continue to benefit users like the new lightning sales home page in the Spring '24 release. To Do List is specific to the user. It cannot be shared or reported on. We need to be using the dynamic activity composer for the right actions to display in the To Do component.

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