Recording and Planning Activities

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In sales, you constantly interact with prospects through mails, phone calls, meetings, and so on. Each of these interactions is known as an activity. ConcourseSuite enables you to record activities as they occur, and to plan your future course of action. The application records the following activities:

Incoming Call
Outgoing Call
Inhouse Meeting
Outside Appointment
Email Servicing
Fax Servicing

To initiate business, you may be required to act in advance or proactively interact with a prospective client or a current customer. In such instances, the following interactions can be recorded:

Proactive Call
Proactive Meeting
Email Proactive
Fax Proactive

Clicking the Activities sub-tab displays the Activities page that enables you to log or schedule an activity for the contact, as shown in Figure 1. The Activities page lists the following activities:

Pending Activities
Completed/Canceled Activities

 

activity_addpage

Figure 1 Logging and Scheduling Activities

A sample contact activities page is shown in Figure 2, displaying both pending and completed activities. When you click action_icon, a context menu is displayed.

 

activity_contextmenu

Figure 2 The Contact Activities Page

The following options are available on the context menu:

View Details
Complete Activity
Modify Activity
Cancel Activity
Forward

Assume a contact named "John Dow" attends an incoming business call. The following sections guide you to record this activity and schedule an outgoing call for the same contact:

Log an Activity
Schedule an Activity

Log an Activity

To record John Dows incoming business call:

1.Click the Log An Activity link.

The page to log an activity is displayed, as shown in Figure 3.

 

activity_addlog

Figure 3 Logging an Activity

2.Select Incoming Call as the Type of activity.
3.Select the start and end date. You can click the calendar icon to select a date, as shown in Figure 4. You can also specify the starting and ending time of the activity. The option of selecting time zone is also provided.

 

selecting_date

Figure 4 Specifying Start Date for the Activity

4.Enter Business Call as the Subject.
5.Enter a brief description of the call in Notes.
6.Specify the location of the activity, if applicable, in Location.
7.Select the participants of the call by clicking Select in front of Participants.

A pop-up window is displayed. By default, a list of contacts is displayed. You can also select participants from employees, your contacts, account contacts, your projects, and leads, as shown in Figure 5.

 

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Figure 5 Selecting Participants

8.Select the required participants name and click Done.
9.Select Email Participants if you want to send a mail to the participants of the activity.
10.Select Yes Business progressing as the Result, as shown in Figure 6.
11.Click Save.

 

activity_addlog1

Figure 6 Logging an Incoming Call

Schedule an Activity

To schedule John Dows planned business call:

1.Access Schedule an Activity by:
a.Select the Schedule follow-up activity option in the Log an Activity section, as shown in Figure 6.
b.Clicking the Schedule an Activity link on the Activities page, as shown in Figure 1.

The page to schedule an activity is displayed, as shown in Figure 7.

 

activity_schedule

Figure 7 Scheduling an Activity

2.Select Outgoing Call as Type.
3.Select the start and end dates. You can click the calendar icon to select a date, as shown in Figure 8. You can also specify the starting and ending time and the time zone of the activity.

 

time_schedule_activity

Figure 8 Specifying Start Date of the Scheduled Activity

4.Enter a brief description and notes on the agenda for the planned call in the respective fields.
5.Select High, Low, or Medium as the Priority depending on the importance of this activity.
6.Specify the location of the activity, if applicable, in Location.
7.Select the participants of the call by clicking Select in front of Participants.

A pop-up window is displayed. By default, list of contacts is displayed. You can also select participants from employees, your contacts, account contacts, your projects, and leads, as shown in Figure 9.

 

adding_contacts

Figure 9 Selecting Participants

8.Select the required participants name and click Done.
9.Select Email Participants if you want to send a mail to the participants of the scheduled activity.
10.Select the option Send a reminder. Specify the time (in minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months) since when you want to receive the reminder.
11.Click Save.

The business call with John Dow is scheduled.