Learn how to navigate activities in this step-by-step guide. Activities is Neon CRM's task management feature. This feature allows system users to record and track interactions with constituents, whether they have already taken place or you are scheduling the activity to happen in the future. Activities can also be linked with Prospects and Grants.
Recommended Reading Before You Start
Contents
Viewing Activities
1. The main Activity dashboard can be found by navigating to Moves Management and selecting Activities.
2. From this page, you can filter the list of activities by nearly any activity data field. Select your options from the drop-down menus and the page will automatically filter. Click on the column headers to sort the results.
3. From this Activities page, you can also bulk edit the Status, Custom Status, or System User for existing activities (click the image below for a closeup).
4. You can also add one or more Activity Widgets to your dashboard. You could have one widget for activities assigned to you and another for activities that are overdue and assigned to anyone.
5. Finally, activities will display on an account's record. Look for the Activities section.
Creating Activities
Activities can be created by clicking the New Activity button, found in many of the places mentioned above.
|
Field Name |
Description |
|
|
A. |
System User |
This is the Neon CRM system user to whom the activity is assigned. |
|
B. |
Account |
This is the person with which the activity is taking place. Use the magnifying glass icon to search your database for accounts. |
|
C. |
Custom Status |
Like Status, this is an indicator of progress. You can change the values of this field in your global settings. |
|
D. |
Subject |
A short description of what the activity is about. |
|
E. |
Solicitation Method |
This describes how the interaction takes place. |
|
F. |
Start Date/ Time |
These fields indicate when the activity is started. |
|
G. |
Location |
Use this to describe where the activity will take place. |
|
H. |
Color |
This is a way to categorize activities. |
|
I. |
Reminder Email |
See more about Activity Reminders. |
|
J. |
Status |
Marks the progress of the activity. |
|
K. |
Priority |
Establish the level of priority for this activity. |
|
L. |
End Date/ Time |
These fields indicate when the activity is to end. |
|
M. |
Updated/ Created |
This is a record of which staff user has created the activity and who was the last person to update it. |
|
N. |
Internal Note |
This field is for adding any additional relevant information to this activity. It is for internal use only. This note content will be included in reminder emails sent to the system user/activity owner, but not in external reminders sent to the constituent. |
|
O. |
External Note |
These notes are included in the reminder email sent to the activity account. |
|
P. |
Additional Relationships |
This section is for custom fields. |
|
Q. |
File Upload |
This allows you to attach a file to an activity, such as a Word document, PDF, or image. This file can be accessed by staff users only. Select Browse to select a file, then select Upload to attach it. |
Repeating Activities
When creating an activity that will occur on a regular basis, you can enable repeating. This will generate copies of this activity, based on the repeating schedule you specify. You can choose to have your activity repeat on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. It can repeat a specified number of times, or you can define an end date.
Activity Reminders
You can tell Neon CRM to automatically send you a reminder email for each activity. You can define how far in advance of the activity to send it, and whether you want to send a reminder to the constituent whose account has an activity as well.
You can also copy others on the reminder email that sends to the System User by entering the email address into the BCC field.
The content of the External Note field will be sent in the reminder email to the Account. Use this to add a personal note to the reminder email, or include content such as images and hyperlinks.
Activity Reminder Emails
The Activity Reminder Email template cannot be customized. It will populate with the activity details in addition to any content you entered into the note fields. A recipient can reply to an activity reminder email.
The sender email and reply to email are pulled from organization contact email specified under Your Organization Profile.
Below is the template for the reminder email that is sent to the constituent (client).
<> would like to remind you about the following activity:</>
Subject: <>
Contact Person: <>
Start Date: <>
Start Time: <>
Location: <>
If you have any questions regarding this email or this activity, please feel free to contact us by replying this email.
Thank you for your continuous support!
Sincerely,
<>
<>
This e-mail transmission contains information that is confidential and may be privileged. It is intended only for the addressee named above. If you receive this e-mail in error, please do not read, copy or disseminate it in any manner. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. Please reply to the message immediately by informing the sender that the message was misdirected. After replying, please erase it from your computer system. Your assistance in correcting this error is appreciated.</></></></></></></>
Below is the template for the reminder email that is sent to the System User. This email will use your default header image.
This reminder email was sent by NEON on behalf of <></>. You received this as you are the designated owner of the following activity.
Subject: <></>
Owner: <></>
Client: <></>
Start Date: <>
Start Time: <></></>Location: <></>
Note: <>
<></></>This e-mail transmission contains information that is confidential and may be privileged. It is intended only for the addressee named above. If you receive this e-mail in error, please do not read, copy or disseminate it in any manner. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. Please reply to the message immediately by informing the sender that the message was misdirected. After replying, please erase it from your computer system. Your assistance in correcting this error is appreciated.
Reporting on Activities
In addition to viewing activities from the Accounts tab, you can view and search on activity data from Reports as well.
Go to Reports New Report Activity and run the Activity Report to view a list of activities based on a variety of criteria including basic account, activity, and prospect data. The Activity Report returns one row per activity; if a single account has more than one activity attached to it, each activity will get its own row.
The following account-based reports allow you to search for accounts based on Activity standard and custom fields:
- Mailing Report
- All Accounts Report
- Household Report
- Email Audience Report
- Stats Report
The following reports have available output columns to view activity data:
- Mailing Report
- All Accounts Report
- Stats Report
These reports return one row per account. If an account has more than one activity, the following data will display in the above Activity columns:
- If any activity fields are included in the search criteria, the output columns will display data from the activity that fits that criteria;
- If no activity fields are included in the search criteria, the output columns will display data from the most recent activity on the account.
In addition, the All Accounts report offers the following output columns:
- Next Activity Subject
- Next Activity Internal Note
- Last Activity Subject
- Last Activity Internal Note
The Next Activity is considered the most recent activity whose Start Date/Time is greater than or equal to the Current Date/Time.
The Last Activity is considered the most recent activity whose Start Date/Time is less than the Current Date/Time.