How activities work
On this page
Every app of the platform can plan work on its records: a reminder on an invoice, a review on a case, a call on a contact. These activities are one and the same kind of record, and Activities manages all of them, not only those created in it.
What an activity holds
Besides its type, title and note, the app gives each activity:
- several people under Assigned To. The first one is the main assignee: the prints and the Assigned To filter of the printed list use that name, and that person's time zone sets the due day. The others find the activity in My Activities too;
- a Supervisor who follows the work, and a Client, a contact the work concerns;
- a Priority, Low, Medium or High, and Tags;
- a due date with a time, 17:00 when only a day is given;
- a timer with its sessions, a recurrence rule, dependencies and a Center;
- its own chatter, which records the changes of its main fields.
The statuses
| Status | When |
|---|---|
| Planned | The due day is still ahead |
| Today | The due day is today, in the assignee's time zone |
| Overdue | The due day has passed |
| Hold | Someone chose Hold, whatever the date |
| Done | Someone marked it done; the activity is archived |
The status is stored so that lists can be filtered and grouped by it. A scheduled job recomputes it every ten minutes, which moves an activity from Planned to Today to Overdue as days pass. A done activity keeps its history and its sessions; Reopen brings it back.
Who sees what
The Activities section of a user offers four access rights, each one including the one before.
| Access right | Sees | Can |
|---|---|---|
| Viewer | My Activities: their own and those of the records they can read | No creating or deleting; the activities assigned to them can still be edited, put on hold and marked done, but their timer time cannot be recorded |
| User | Also Centers and Print | Create and change activities as on the rest of the platform, run timers, create centers, print |
| Supervisor | Every activity of every user, All Activities, Configuration | Change or delete any activity; manage activity types, tags and center templates |
| Manager | Also the settings | Delete activity types and centers; receives the emails of the rules that tick Manager |
A user without any of them keeps the platform's standard behavior. Create a user and set access rights shows where they are given.
Dependencies
An activity can depend on others: it waits until they are done. While one of them is open, the activity is pending: its card shows a lock, and Start and Mark Done refuse it in this app. The Extra Info tab draws the chain under Dependency Chart. Center templates create dependencies; the Sequential Tasks option of Activities settings shows the Depends On field to set them by hand.
Meetings
An activity of the type Meeting with a due date and time books a meeting in the calendar for everyone assigned, lasting one hour or its Planned Hours; the activity form links it under Meeting. Moving the activity moves the meeting, and changing its assignees changes the attendees. Cancelling the activity deletes the meeting it booked, never one booked by hand; marking it done keeps the meeting. Calendar explains the meeting itself.
Emails
The app decides alone which emails leave about activities; the platform's own "assigned to you" email is switched off.
- Reminders: the due date rules send each person one email per run, listing the activities due for them, in their language and time zone.
- Events: an email when an activity is created, edited or cancelled, only for the events that have a rule. Someone already invited to the activity's meeting gets no separate creation email.
Both are set in Activities settings; Activities automations lists the jobs and templates behind them.
Archived users
When a user is archived, the platform normally deletes the activities assigned to them. This app keeps them, so that the work can be reassigned; reminders skip the archived user.
What the app does not do
- It has no reminder per activity: the rules serve every activity of the database, whatever its company.
- Working Days Only takes Saturday and Sunday as the weekend.
- The Default Supervisor setting is saved but not applied to any activity.
- Closing a center does not close its activities, and reopening one does not reopen them.
- A status changes with the calendar only when the refresh job runs.
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