Creating & Working with Activities

Overview

Activities are actionable to-dos in AMS+. You can use Activities to track interactions with agents, clients, prospects, and team members, and set follow-up reminders. Activities can’t be altered or deleted, so you can use them as a source of historical data.

IN THIS ARTICLE

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Creating Activities

There are many ways to create Activities in AMS+. In general, you can create new Activities from anywhere in AMS+ using the +New button in the application header. You can also create Activities from Group, Individual, Agent, and Carrier records.

You can also create activities via the following:

• Activities Dashboard. Create new activities from your Activities Dashboard or Personal Dashboard if the Activity List is favorited.
• Automated Workflow. Set up a workflow that automatically creates activities when certain criteria are triggered.
• Calendar. Create new activities on the calendar page. Activities with due dates will immediately display on the follow-up user/team’s calendar.
• Email Forwarding. Send emails from any email provider to your unique activity forwarding address to turn them into activities.
• Outlook Email Sync. Download and install our Microsoft Outlook Add-In to turn Outlook emails into activities.

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Updating Activities

Once created, you can view and append an Activity at any time. Appending is a way of updating Activities. Your changes are added to a thread, which logs all changes made to the Activity. To append, open an Activity and select the “Update...” button. Then make your changes.

If you have a quick status update, you can make it from a record’s Activities tab or the Activity List on the Dashboard. In the list’s “Status” column, select the link and submit your changes (update status/add note). Voila! No need to go into the Activity.

Mass updating

You can mass update Activities from a record’s Activities tab or the Activity List on the Dashboard. In the Actions menu, select “Mass Update…” and mark the checkbox next to every Activity you want to update.

You have three options for updates:

• Mass update status
• Mass reassign follow-up User
• Mass assign follow-up Team

Each option allows you to add a note to capture the reason why for transparency and auditing purposes. Also, please note, you will need additional Security Group permissions if you want to mass reassign. See below for more details.

Mass reassigning

To mass reassign Activities, you must belong to a Security Group with the “Mass Reassign Activities” Administrative permission. You may also need the following permissions depending on the types of records you’re working with:

• Group, Individual, Sales Opportunity, Policy > Visible permission
• Agent > Visible permission
• Carrier > Visible permission

If you have these permissions, you can mass reassign Activities at the record level or from the Activity List on the Dashboard.

You may find the Activity List on the Dashboard option especially useful for reassigning incomplete Activities when people leave your agency or take time off. It allows you to view Activities across all record types for a specific User. You can then reassign all the User’s Activities to another User or Team.

Please note, you will need to have the View Other Users’ Activities User setting to make full use of the Activity List.

Verifying User permissions

When mass reassigning Activities, you will see this message:

Keep in mind, you could be reassigning Activities associated with records that the new follow-up User can't access. To keep this from happening, make sure they have the appropriate Security Group permissions.

Here’s how:

Go to Settings > Users and select the User you want to reassign Activities to.

In the User's details, scroll down until you see the Security Group setting.

Write down the name of the User's assigned Security Group.

Go to Settings > Security Groups and open the User's Security Group.

You can quickly locate and verify the User's Security Group by hovering over the number in the "Users" column.

On the "Edit Security Group Permissions" page, check the Group, Individual, Agent, Carrier, Policy, or Sales Opportunity permissions.

Let's say you're mass reassigning Individual Activities. In this example, the new follow-up User needs permissions to see, access, and edit Individual records. Otherwise, they won't be able to access their assigned Individual Activities.

Editing association

Sometimes you or someone else creates an Activity on the wrong record. Mistakes happen. If it happens, you fix your mistake by re-associating the Activity with the correct record.

To edit an Activity’s association, go to the Activity details. In the Actions menu, select the “Edit Association…” option and choose the record you want to associate it with.

When editing an Activity’s association, keep in mind that the assigned follow-up User could lose access to the Activity if they do not have Security Group permissions for the associated record.

Note: You must belong to a Security Group with the “Edit Activity Association” Administrative permission to make this kind of update.

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Managing Activities

Priority & Status

Set the priority to show an Activity’s importance and level of urgency. You can sort Activities by priority when viewing them on the record or the Activity List on the Dashboard to ensure the important Activities are taken care of first.

Set the status to show an Activity’s state of completion. Until an Activity's status is changed to completed, it will be treated as incomplete.

Note: You can add, remove, or update the priority and status field options that you can choose from. Visit the Data & Custom Fields article for more details.

Follow-up User & Team

Set a follow-up User and/or Team for assignment. The follow-up User dropdown only lists active Users in your account. Agent CRM Users need to be assigned to the record in order for you to select them as a follow-up User.

Dates

Set dates to track when an Activity occurred and schedule a reminder to appear on your Dashboard.

• Posted Date - This date is a fixed timestamp that shows when the Activity was created or last appended. You may find it useful for tracking an Activity's change history from an auditing perspective.
  Activity Date - Use this date to indicateate when the Activity actually occurred.
  Due Date - Use this date to assign a deadline to an Activity. Activities with due dates will display on the follow-up User/Team's AMS+ Calendar. You can look up past-due activities on the Dashboard.

Please note, how you view the Posted Date timestamp and Due Date start/end times is based on your time zone. If you aren’t using your current time zone, activities may show incorrect times. This is particularly noticeable on the Dashboard > Activities > Activity List and AMS+ Calendar. You can change your time zone in My Account > My Info.

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Adding attachments

When you create a new Activity or append to an existing Activity thread, you can choose files to upload and attach to the Activity.

Here are the accepted file types:
.bmp, .csv, .doc, .docm, .docx, .eml, .gif, .gz, .htm, .html, .jpeg, .jpg, .log, .m4a, .mp3, .mp4, .msg, .numbers, .pages, .pdf, .png, .pps, .ppt, .pptx, .pub, .rtf, .TIF, .tiff, .txt, .vcf, .wav, .wmv, .wps, .xls, .xlsb, .xlsm, .xlsx, and .zip.

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Activity notifications

When you or your Team is assigned an Activity or an email sent to your Activity Forwarding Address can’t be associated, AMS+ will notify you via email. This email will contain a brief summary and direct link to the Activity.

These email notifications are enabled by default, but you can customize them in your My Account > My Info settings.

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Common questions

When should I use Activities and when should I not?
When an activity is created, it is associated with an Agent, Carrier, Group, Individual, Sales Opportunity, or Policy record in AMS+. Activities are a great way to capture to-dos and set follow-up reminders that are related to the record in some way. For example, appointments with clients and prospects, reminders to run reports, create email campaigns, and more.

Also, it’s helpful to keep in mind that:

• Activities can’t be deleted.
• Activities do not span multiple days (ex. Monday thru Friday).
• Activities do not recur.

What’s a quick way to find incomplete Activities?
Use the Activities standard report, build your own in Custom Reporting, or use the Activity List on the Dashboard.

Is there a way to quickly add a follow up Team to all of my open Activities?
Yes. Mass reassign. Learn how in this article.

An agent is leaving my agency so I need to reassign all their Activities to someone else. What’s the fastest and easiest way to do this?
Mass reassign Activities from the Dashboard. Learn how in this article.

Is there a limit to how many attachments I can add to an Activity?

You can upload and attach as many files to an activity as you want, but the maximum file size for a single file is 125MB.