Activities

Account is required on every activity except one on a lead that has not yet converted. A lead is a company that is not yet an account, and the sales development rep logs the first call against the lead alone rather than inventing an account for it. Where the lead matched an existing account, the account is filled from the match; otherwise it is filled at conversion, when the lead’s activities are moved onto the account and contact it became. That rule is what makes the account page a complete history and the last-activity rollup trustworthy. Contact, opportunity and lead are set where they apply, so a meeting with the champion about the expansion deal is found from the contact, from the deal and from the account.

Outcome is a select because the reports count it. A call is connected, left message or no answer; a meeting is held, or its status records a no-show or a cancellation; next step agreed is its own outcome because it is the one that matters. Notes are free text for what was said. A rep who logs “call, connected, next step agreed, demo booked for the 14th” in four fields and one line has given the manager everything a pipeline review needs.

Tasks are activities with a due date and no time. The rep creates them, and a next step on a deal creates one when the rep sets the date. Automation creates one when a next step date passes, when a renewal opportunity opens, or when a contract’s renewal risk is set to high. The rep’s day starts in My Activities Today, and the manager can see whose planned activities are being completed and whose are being pushed.

Mail is the record most reps already keep, so the system reads it. A connected mailbox matches messages to contacts by address and logs them as email activities on the contact and the account, with the message id kept so the same email is never logged twice. Calendar events with a known contact as an attendee become meetings with start and end time. The rep confirms which deal a synced item belongs to when the system cannot tell, and can mark a thread private so it is not logged.

A confirmed hard bounce can flag the contact as Bounced. A reply suggesting a departure creates a review for the responsible user before Status changes to left company. An out-of-office response alone does not establish departure.

Completed activities write the last activity date on the account, the contact and the opportunity. Those fields are why Strategic and Key Accounts can be sorted by when anyone last spoke to the customer, and why Activity Summary can list open deals with no touch in thirty days without scanning the log. The same date sits on Stale Deals and Team Pipeline beside the next step, so the manager sees the stale deal and the silent one in the same list. Touch counts per rep per week feed the summary, alongside meetings held and demos given.

• My Activities Today: the tasks and calls due, with the account, contact, deal or lead beside each.
• My Week: calls, meetings and demos with start and end time, as a calendar.
• On every account, contact, deal and lead: the activity timeline, newest first, with synced email inline.
• Activity Summary for the manager: touches per rep per week and the deals and accounts going quiet.