Calendar and Activities

Calendar and Activities
	Chapter 2. Data Entry for the CRM System

The CRM system provides a calendar such as you would normally find at your desktop. This calendar distinguishes between events and tasks (ToDos), all together called activities. Events are calls and meetings but your CRM administrator may add other types of activities, such as vacation or roadshow. The operational differences between Events and ToDos will be explained in the following sections.

	Important
	Be careful when scheduling your activities. Even if you consider a meeting as a task, the CRM system does not. You will find more about tasks in section: Tasks and ToDos.

The CRM system offers several possibilities to enter or to schedule calendar-related activities. You might use the calendar directly, the Quick-Menu, or you might create activities during the sales process in Leads or Potentials, or during services at the Trouble Ticket menu. Calendar entries can and should be linked to other data stored in CRM system, such as contacts, leads or accounts. Not only does the CRM system help you to schedule activities, it also provides you with a set of tools for efficiently managing activities throughout your organization.

Calendar

If you want use the calendar to schedule an event or task, click either on the calendar icon at any list view or [Calendar] at the navigation area. A new window will open which will display, depending on your system setup, either the calendars list or the hour view. The hour view is shown in figure: Calendar - Hourly View.

Figure 2.15. Calendar - Hour View

At this view all events scheduled for a particular day are displayed. You may switch to a weekly, monthly or yearly view by clicking the appropriate icon at the top of the daily calendar. You may also switch to a list view or to the calendar of one of your co-workers. You will get probably the best view on your calendar if you make the weekly view to your standard view.

Adding an Event to the Calendar

To enter the schedule of a meeting, call or one of your own event types click the [Add Event] button and select your event type. A pop up window within the calendar will open as shown in figure: New Event .

Figure 2.16. New Event (Call or Meeting)

Here you may enter your event information. The following table explains the field types.

Table 2.3. Overview event information

Event type:	Select a call or meeting or other custom activities as defined by the CRM administrator.
Event name:	A mandatory field; you must provide a name for the activity.
Description:	You may add a short description of this event when you plan this event. After the event you may use this space to enter goals, action items, or meeting minutes.
Mark Public:	You may mark an event as Public, so that a newly created event is shared with other users. Look at section: Calendar Sharing for further information.
Status:	By default the status is set to planned. If the status is set to planned you can only make entries which are dated in the future. If you want to make entries for the past, set the status to Held or Completed.
Priority:	You may set a priority.
Assigned to:	By default the creating user is the owner of the event. You may change it if necessary.
Send Notification:	If you mark this check box, an email with the actual event information will be sent to the owner of the event. You may use this function for instance if the event owner changes.
Start Date/Time and End:	Every event has a beginning and an end. You may choose to have an end date days later. This is for instance the case if you have business trip of several days.
Invite:	You may invite other CRM users to this event by following the instruction displayed. Note that these users will receive an automatic email with the event information as content.

You may click the [Reminder] tab, to schedule an automatic reminder email to be send by the CRM as shown in figure: Event Reminder.

Figure 2.17. Event Reminder

For the reminder message you have to enter the time. The current version does not allow you to change the email address. This may change in the future.

In addition, the CRM allows you to schedule events which occur on regular basis. Click the [Repeat] tab, to make your settings. The dialog is shown in figure: Repeating Events.

Figure 2.18. Repeating Events

Furthermore, you may link an event with your contacts as demonstrated in figure: Event Relations.

Figure 2.19. Event Relations

Finally, click [Save] to transfer the event schedule to the CRM. As a result you will see the event listed in your calendar.

	Note
	Each individual user has his or her own calendar. However, you may invite other CRM users to calls or meetings and/or share your calendar with other users as explained in section: Calendar Sharing. A calendar is displayed in the browser defined-language. If you see the calendar in a wrong language, please check your browser settings.

Tasks and ToDos

The CRM system helps you to schedule tasks which are also sometimes called ToDos. Tasks are always assigned to one CRM user or Group and do not have an end date. You cannot invite other users to tasks nor can you link more than one contact with tasks. However, you may transfer tasks to others by changing the owner.

	Important
	Tasks are separated from your calendar as ToDos. They are also displayed at the Upcoming and Pending Activities list at a users Home page.

There are many places at the CRM where you can enter tasks. You may enter tasks at any detail view of steps in your sales process or in the calendar. The edit view window as shown in figure: New Task / ToDo will open and you may enter your task information. Please note the mandatory fields.

Figure 2.20. New Task / ToDo

When you are finished click [Save] to store the task in the CRM system.

Calendar Sharing

By default, every user's calendar is set to private. That means that other users may see that you have an event scheduled but do not get access to detailed information. However, you may share your calendar or specific event entries with other CRM system users.

Sharing with any CRM user defined by the calendar settings:
Select [Calendar View]--> Click [Calendar Settings] icon -->In Calendar Settings pop-up, select the list of users with whom you want to share your calendar as displayed in figure: Calendar Settings. All events which are marked as public, will be visible to the shared users. Other users may view a shared event but are not allowed to edit or delete it.
Figure 2.21. Calendar Settings
Event-related sharing with users in the Role-based hierarchy:
Irrespective of sharing events settings at your calendar, other users in the role-based hierarchy can view specific events at another user's calendar if these events have been made public. To make a particular event public, mark the [Public] check box as displayed in figure: New Event when you create a new event. A user with a role above in the hierarchy can always see the calendar of subordinates.

Calendar Settings

In section: Calendar Sharing is already explained how you can access the calendar settings in order to configure the sharing functions. In addition to the calendar sharing function, you may configure the time your calendar starts and the time format. Please look at figure: Calendar Settings for further reference.

All Events and ToDos

If you want to see all activities in one list you may click the [All Events & ToDos] tab at the Calendar menu as exemplary shown in figure: All Events and ToDos View - List View.

Figure 2.22. All Events and ToDos - List View

You can change the list according to your own criteria and filter functions. Please refer to section: Working with Lists for further instruction on how to modify the list view. You may also mark an activity as closed by clicking the [X] sign.

Import and Export of Activities

For importing or exporting activities to or from your office environment, the CRM comes with a set of extensions you may want to install at your computer. This includes an Outlook plugin for Windows computer or a Thunderbird & Mozilla extension for Windows, Mac or Linux. For further information on these extensions use the relevant manuals as listed in Appendix: Ressources or look at section: Synchronizing CRM with Office Environment of this manual.