Summary

Activities provide a way for an organization to track interactions with users in their own organization and with their customers. The different types of activities are:

A custom activity allows an organization to track communication with other users or their customers, outside of traditional communication methods. Although these are becoming more common, some examples of custom activities are text messages and social media posts such as Facebook and Twitter.

Activities have several common attributes among the different record types, such as Subject, Owner and Regarding. Activity types such as e-mail, phone call, letter, fax and appointment have their own specific attributes. The aforementioned Regarding field is very important as it denotes the record related to the activity. This field is used to link the activity record to a record in the CRM system.

When an activity has been finished it can be marked completed. Once an activity is completed, certain parts of the activity form become read only, but notes can still be added, files can be attached, and the activity can be shared with other users or teams.

Activities can be seen on the "regarding" records via the activity associated view, through the activity roll-up functionality, or by using the activity views.

Notes can also be added to any entity that has the notes functionality enabled. Notes are yet another method for users to track interactions between other users and customers.

In the next chapter, you will learn how to create and manage marketing lists, campaigns, and campaign responses. You will also learn how to analyze marketing data in order to provide your organization with effective reporting.