Be effective with tracking, getting reminded and keeping up with all the tasks you need to do for your client through expertly managing your Activities! Trail's Activities feature is one you will want to know about as it is closely tied to your Opportunities management.
In this article you will learn:
Why use Activities in Trail?
Managing the Activities Page
Using the Filters for everyday management
Where else to manage Activities - Profile & Pipeline
Getting Notified on Activities
Why Activities?
We strongly encourage you to use Activities frequently for all task management in Trail. This helps you stay on top of each next step for your client and reminds you what you need to do to keep the Opportunity continuously moving forward in your Pipeline.
Activities support internal processes and teamwork as you can assign Activities between teammates - adviser to assistant or client manager, and back! - and make comments/notes to each other.
It is also great for record keeping - to have a record on the Client's Profile on what you've done for the client and attach any information about the task you did.
Plus Activities in Trail are customizable to your business needs! Click here to learn how to customize them to suit your workflow and represent your tasks you do for your client.
Activities Page
Starting with the Activities page - this gives you a great overview and has filters for you to see any historic, current and upcoming activities. We consider this page an everyday one for task management on Trail.
To access your Activities page, click the calendar icon on the navbar on the left of your screen:
The Activities page shows all your (or your teammates) activities. It will show what the activity is, which Profile it is linked to, and when it is due, among other details.
The activity header bar allows you to filter the activities by time, activity type, and complete/incomplete:
On the page is the current view based on the filters you set in the header bar.
Activities that are overdue are represented by a red circle
Activities that have been completed will display a green tick, and be greyed out
Activities that have are not completed are represented by a white unfilled circle
Activities where the Activity name is in red is an urgent activity.
You can filter by the Activity's
Assignee - who is assigned to it
Due timeframe (e.g. Overdue, Due Today, Due This Week etc.)
Activity Type (Call, Email, Task etc.)
Urgent/ not
Use Advanced Filtering to search more specifically
Using Filters for Everyday Activity Management
We would recommend that you come to your Activities daily, as you keep on top of making new/ next activities in relation to your clients in Trail.
Here is a typical way to use this page.
Scenario 1: You're wanting to see the upcoming activities in the next 30 day timeframe and then work through those.
Filter the Due Date by a future-based timeframe e.g. "Next 30 Days"
Filter by "Incomplete" Activities
Filter by the column "Due Date" by clicking on it. Then it should bring the closest due date to the top, and then you'll know what is priority.
Further to this, you can also momentarily click "Urgent" activities to see which activities are regarded as urgent to evaluate whether you should start on those instead. Click the icon again to toggle the urgent activities off.
Scenario 2: You're wanting to only tackle upcoming "Email" based tasks to get all your emailing out of the way first thing in the morning.
In addition to the previous Scenario filters, filter the task type by "Email" (as highlighter below)
This way you're able to see all the upcoming Email tasks due in the next 30 days, and that are not completed yet!
Where else to manage Activities?
Activities can also be found, created and edited on the a client's Profile or on the Pipeline.
Client Profile
Past activities can be found in the Profile's Timeline, and current activities are found above the Timeline. Learn more about this here!
Pipeline
On the Pipeline, you'll notice that each Opportunity has a different coloured bar next to it. This represents the status of the activity. From your Pipeline, you can add and edit activities for an Opportunity. More on this here!
Getting notified of Activities
Depending on your settings, you will receive different kinds of notifications for Activities. Your notification settings are where you can decide in which situation you receive which kind of Activity notifications.