Activities in CRM

An essential part of the customer relations management functionality is the ability to create activities to schedule for business objects (business partners, contacts, opportunities, or other activities), and to track the progress of these activities.

An activity is an appointment, call, task, mailing, or email that must be created or executed by a user and that is registered in LN. Activities include, for example, phone calls, mailings, visits, and surveys. Optionally, tasks, appointments, and calls can be synchronized with Microsoft Exchange.

In the Activities (tccom6100m000) session, activities can be created and linked to business objects. Activities can be manually created or automatically generated.

Manual creation of activities

In the Activities (tccom6100m000) session, you can manually create these activities:

  • Appointments

    Click New Appointment to enter an appointment in the Appointment (tccom6600m100) session.

  • Calls

    Click New Call to enter a call in the Call (tccom6600m200) session.

  • Tasks

    Click New Task to enter a task in the Task (tccom6600m300) session.

  • Emails

    Click New Email to enter an email in the Email (tccom6600m500) session.
Note: 

The Activities (tccom6100m000) session can be started stand-alone, but also appears as a tab in these sessions:

  • Business Partner (tccom4100s000)
  • Opportunity (tdsmi1610m000)
  • Contact (tccom1640m000)
  • Activities (tccom6100m000)

Automatic generation of activities

In the Global Addition of Activities (tdsmi2210m100) session, you can globally add activities to multiple business partners, opportunities, etc.

Based on an activity template, which you can define in the Activity Templates (tdsmi0155m000) session, you can automatically generate these activities:

  • Tasks from the Global Addition of Activities (tdsmi2210m100) session.
  • Mailings from the Mail Merge by Standard Letter (tdsmi2410m000) session. You can view the generated mailing in the Mailing (tccom6600m400) session.
Note: Appointments can also be generated from assignments in Service and from inspection order lines or non-conformance material and corrective action plan (CAP) tasks in Quality.

Follow-up activities

An activity can also result in another activity. Therefore, from an appointment, call, task, mailing, or email, follow-up activities can be created of the types Call, Task, Appointment, and Email.

In the activity sessions, you can manually create these follow-up activities:

  • Follow-up appointment

    Click Follow Up Appointment to enter a follow-up appointment in the Appointment (tccom6600m100) session.

  • Follow-up call

    Click Follow Up Call to enter a follow-up call in the Call (tccom6600m200) session.

  • Follow-up task

    Click Follow Up Task to enter a follow-up task in the Task (tccom6600m300) session.

  • Follow-up email

    Click Follow Up Email to enter a follow-up email in the Email (tccom6600m500) session.
Note: 

If an activity is generated from another activity:

  • The Contact, Business Partner, and Business Object references are copied to the new activity.
  • A reference to the original activity is specified in the new activity. You can update all references in the follow-up activity, except for the reference to the original activity.
  • The attendees or recipients of the original activity are copied to the new activity.

Additional functionality

  • Attributes

    You can link attributes to an activity in the Attributes by Activity (tdsmi2101m000) session, which appears as a tab in most activity sessions. For example, the activity is a survey, and the questions to be asked to the business partner are created as attributes and linked to the activity. When employees perform this activity, they open the attributes fields and enter the answers to the survey in the attributes fields as they obtain the information over the phone.

  • Notes

    You can link notes to an activity in the Notes (tcstl1550m000) session, which appears as a tab in all activity sessions.

  • References

    You can link references to an activity in the References by Activity (tccom6115m000) session, which appears as a tab in all activity sessions.

  • Attendees

    You can invite attendees to a call or an appointment using the Attendee (tccom6105m000) session, which is displayed as a tab in the Call (tccom6600m200) and Appointment (tccom6600m100) sessions. If the Synchronize check box is selected in these sessions, calls and appointments are synchronized with an attendee's calendar events in Microsoft Exchange.

  • Recipients

    You can select recipients for an email in the Recipients (tccom6600m900) session, which can be started from the Email (tccom6600m500) session.

  • Attachments

    You can link attachments to an email in the Attachments (tccom6110m000) session, which can be started from the Email (tccom6600m500) session.
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