Activities

What is it and what is it for?

Each activity is a short record with a description, a date and, optionally, a responsible user. It can be linked to a Customer/Prospect/Vendor, an Opportunity, a Project, an Item, a Fixed Asset or a transaction (invoice, quote, service order, etc.), so there's a record of what the follow-up is about.

There are five activity types, each with its own screen:

• My Tasks / All Tasks. To-dos with a date, an owner and a status (Pending, In Progress, In Pause, Completed, Canceled). They can be assigned to another user.
• Events. Calendar appointments with a start and end date/time, a shared calendar and an optional recurrence (daily, weekly, monthly or yearly).
• Notes. Free-form notes to record something about a contact, opportunity or transaction.
• Calls. A log of phone calls made or received.
• Visits. A log of in-person visits, with a visit date and, if applicable, an end date. These feed the sales-route reports.

When you assign a task to another user, AdmCloud sends them a notification (a pop-up alert and an email) so they know about the assigned work. When a task is completed, another email is sent to the assigned user and to whoever created it.

How to use it

1. Open the right menu. Tasks and the other activities have separate menus:
   • Settings > Administration > Tasks opens the My Tasks list, with the tasks assigned to you. Its tabs at the top only show the task screens: My Tasks, All Tasks and the two Kanban views (Tasks by Status and Tasks by Group, see the section below).
   • Transactions > CRM > Activities opens the Events list. Its tabs at the top show the other activities: Events, Notes, Calls and Visits.
   The side menu also has a Tasks shortcut, below Import Documents, that opens My Tasks and shows up for users who have the Tasks menu option. You can also jump straight to My Tasks with the My Pending Tasks button on the dashboard's Pending Tasks panel. Old links to /Activities and /Activities/PendingTasks still work and take you to My Tasks.
2. Filter by date. Each tab has a date range filter (From/To) and a refresh button that reloads the list without reloading the page. My Tasks also lets you filter by Related, Project and Board (the task board each record belongs to). All Tasks has those same filters plus Assigned To.
3. Show completed tasks too. The four task screens (My Tasks, All Tasks, Tasks by Status and Tasks by Group) show only open tasks by default (Pending, In Progress or In Pause). Check Include completed to also see Completed tasks. Canceled tasks are not shown on these screens.
4. Show the tasks you created too. My Tasks, both Kanban boards and the dashboard's Pending Tasks panel show only the tasks assigned to you by default. Check Include created by me to also see the ones you created without an owner or assigned to someone else.
5. Customize the columns. Out of the box, All Tasks shows the creation date, the description, the user who created the task, the assigned user, the status and the linked transaction. The customize-columns button lets you show or hide columns, reorder them by dragging the header, and save the layout to reuse it later. The other tabs have the same mechanism, with the columns that apply to each activity type.
6. Spot users by their photo. On all six lists (the two task lists and the four activity lists), the user columns (User and Assigned To) show the user's photo to the left of their name, and the name links to their record. When the user has no photo uploaded, a circle with their initials is shown instead.
7. Create a new task. On My Tasks, All Tasks, both Kanban boards and the dashboard's Pending Tasks panel, the New button opens the quick task form in a dialog, without leaving the screen: description, assigned to and expiration date, and under Show advanced options the rest of a task's fields (status, subsidiary, visible by customer, start and end dates, transaction, related, item, opportunity, project, fixed asset, maintenance plan, budget, HR transaction, trip, reconciliation and notes). Fields from modules not included in your plan are not shown. If the list is filtered by a board, the task is created on that board. Assigned To is optional: whoever created a task without an owner sees it by checking Include created by me.
8. Create a task from a record. On the detail screen of invoices and other transactions, customers and vendors, items, opportunities, projects, fixed assets, maintenance plans, budgets, reconciliations, trips, work orders, service requests, HR transactions and custom records, the tasks tab opens that same form. The task is automatically linked to the open record (which is why that link isn't shown in the form) and is added to the record's task list when saved.
9. Create another activity. Use the add button; the form adapts based on the type (Task, Event, Note, Call or Visit), showing and hiding the fields that apply to each one. If your company requires capturing location on documents, AdmCloud will ask for your location before saving.
10. Fill in the fields for that type. On a task or event you can assign an owner (Assigned To); on an event you can turn on recurrence so it repeats automatically.
11. Save. AdmCloud validates the required fields for that activity type (see the validations section) before creating the record.
12. Review the detail. Click the activity's description to open its full read-only record.
13. Change a task's status. From the detail screen, use the Change Status button to mark it Pending, In Progress, In Pause, Completed or Canceled without editing the whole record.
14. Complete a task in one click. On the My Tasks and All Tasks tabs every row has a check button that marks the task Completed straight from the list, without opening the detail. It only shows on tasks that are still open (Pending, In Progress or In Pause).
15. Change the assigned user from the list. The user button on each row opens a dialog with the photo and name of every active user, plus a search box. Picking one hands the task over to them and notifies them by email and by an on-screen notification. You can also pick (unassigned) to leave it without an owner. It's the same dialog used to change who authorizes a purchase order.
16. Delete it once it's no longer needed. Select one or more rows in the list and use the delete button.

Task Kanban boards

Besides the list, the tasks assigned to you (and, with Include created by me, the ones you created) can be organized as a Kanban board: drag cards between columns to reclassify them without opening each record. There are two views, reachable from the tabs of the Tasks menu:

• Tasks by Status. Fixed status columns: Pending, In Progress, In Pause, Completed and Canceled. Drag a card to another column to change its status. Canceled always stays empty because it only works as a drop zone to close a card; so does Completed, unless you check Include completed: then it shows the completed tasks with their count, and you can drag them back to another column to reopen them.
• Tasks by Group. Columns that you name yourself (for example, by priority or by work stage). Drag cards between groups to reorganize them; tasks that don't have a group yet show up in the Ungrouped column. Each card also has a status selector so you can change its status without dragging it.

Both views share the concept of a Task Board: the first time you open either one, a default board is created automatically, and the selector at the top lets you create additional boards to separate, for example, your personal tasks from a team's or a project's. You can rename or delete the boards you created; the default board can't be deleted, and deleting any other board keeps its tasks and moves them to the default board. Within Tasks by Group you can also create, rename and delete the groups (columns) of the selected board; deleting a group keeps its tasks, including other users' tasks, and moves them to Ungrouped on the same board. The system asks for confirmation first.

From either board you can create a quick task with a short form (description, assigned to and expiration date) and, if you need to, expand the advanced options with the rest of a task's fields (status, subsidiary, dates, notes and links to a transaction, customer, item, opportunity, project, fixed asset and other records). A Hide empty columns toggle, saved per user, lets you focus only on the columns that have tasks, and the Include completed check adds completed tasks to the board (in Tasks by Group they show up in their group, with Completed selected in the status selector).

Boards update in real time: when another user in the company (or you in another tab) moves, creates, changes or deletes a task, a group or a board, the board you have open refreshes by itself, without reloading the page and keeping your scroll position. If you are dragging a card at that moment, the refresh waits until you drop it.

Scheduling an event from the dashboard calendar

You don't need to go into Activities to jot down an appointment. From the Calendar panel on your Home screen you can open a short form and schedule the event without leaving the dashboard:

1. Open the form. Use the New Event link on the panel, or click directly on the day of the calendar where you want the appointment (in that case the dates come already filled in with the day you picked).
2. Fill in the essentials. The form only asks for Name (the title of the appointment), Start date and time, End date and time, Notes and, if the appointment repeats, the Recurrence with its frequency, expiration date and —for weekly recurrence— the days of the week.
3. Save. The appointment is added to the dashboard calendar right away and is stored as an activity of type Event, under your user and the subsidiary you are working in.

Key fields and validations when saving

Availability by plan

• The My Tasks, All Tasks, Tasks by Status and Tasks by Group tabs are available on every plan.
• The Events, Notes, Calls and Visits tabs require the Enterprise plan. On other plans the Transactions > CRM > Activities menu doesn't show up, and the activity type when creating a record is fixed to "Task".
• To view, create, edit or delete activities you need the "Activities" permission (CRM module) at the corresponding level (View, Add, Edit or Delete).

Where this information appears

• On the Customer, Prospect and Vendor detail screens, as a history of related activities.
• On CRM Opportunities and on the opportunity follow-up workspace.
• On the collections workspace, as collection follow-up notes.
• On CRM reports: Activities by User, Visits Report and Customer Visits Report.

Tips and common pitfalls