Understanding and Using Activities

Overview

Activities are the interactions between the members of your firm and prospects and clients, including logging a call, sending an email or creating an event. These activities are nested within the Individual, Household or Organization to clearly show how often your firm has been in contact with a Client or Prospect while keeping the information organized. This article outlines how to log a call, email or event in your organization.

•  Calls
  • Logging General Calls
  • Logging Client-Specific Calls
• Events
  • Creating General Events
  • Creating Client-Specific Events
• Emails
  • Sending General Emails
  • Sending Client Record Emails
• Linking to Other Records
• Activity Views

Calls

After talking on the phone, you'll want to capture the conversation details within Practifi for your future reference. Calls can be general, meaning they are not related to a record within Practifi, or Client-Specific where they relate to a record within your Practifi organization. 

Logging General Calls

General calls can be logged at any point within Practifi by following these steps:

1. Select the Global Actions icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
2. From the drop-down menu, select the Log a Call option.
   
   
3. A panel will open in the lower-right corner of the screen with a set of fields. Supply a subject and comment for the call's information. 
4. Once the information is entered, select Save to log the call within Practifi.
   
   
5. Upon saving a success message will be displayed when the record is created. Click the X on the right to close the message.
   
   

Logging Client-Specific Calls

You can log calls related to a Key Entity record within Practifi. The Log a Call feature is found within the Activities section of the record. Client-specific calls can also be logged via the Global Actions menu but will require designating the related record during the logging process. To log a call on a Key Entity record:

1. On the Key Entity record, select the Activities navigation icon. 
   
   
2. Select the Log a Call tab on the Activities page.
3. From this page, you will have several fields available to log the specific information from the call:
   1. In this field, the Subject of the call is entered; this is typically something concise but descriptive, such as "Financial planning touchpoint call."
   2. The Name field is where the call is logged to the specific contact of the Household or Organization. For an Individual record, this will default to the Individual's name. Additional names can be added in this space, such as a team member from your firm.
   3. Comments are where the notes from the call are entered. This is where you can note any topics discussed or important information gained from speaking to your Prospect or Client.
   4. Related To is where you will attach it to the Individual, Household or Organization of the call's contact. This field will auto-generate with the name of the Client or Prospect you are logging the call in.
4. On completion of the fields, click Save. A success message will appear. Click the X on the right side to close the message.
   
   
5. The new call log entry will appear in the Activities timeline as a new activity under the calendar month that you logged it.
   
   

Events

Events can be created specifically for a Client in Practifi to record a forthcoming calendar event on the Client's record. Events can also be created with more general coverage to appear on the user's Calendar in Practifi.

Creating General Events

General events can be logged at any point within Practifi by following these steps:

1. Select the Global Actions icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
2. From the drop-down menu, select the New Event option.
   
3. A panel opens in the lower-right corner of the screen with a set of fields. Supply a Subject, Event Type, Description and Start and End Dates and Times. 
   
4. Click Save to save the event.
   
5. Upon saving, a success message will be displayed. Click the X on the right to close the message.
   
   
6. The event will appear in the user's Calendar on the Navigation Menu as a calendar entry.
   
   

Creating Client-Specific Events

You can also log events related to a specific Key Entity record within Practifi. Events are listed within the Activities section of the Key Entity record in chronological order. Client-specific events can also be created via the Global Actions menu but will require designating the related record during the creation process. To create an event under the Activities section:

1. On the Key Entity record, select the Activities navigation icon. 
2. Select the New Event tab on the Activities page.
3. From this page, you will have several fields available to enter the specific information about the event:
   1. The subject is entered in this field. As mentioned previously, this should be something concise but descriptive enough for your firm to identify the nature of the event.
   2. Set the event's date and time in these fields. Clicking in either the Start or End date fields will open a small calendar for you to select the date. Select the All-Day Event checkbox to remove the time selection and designate that the event will be lasting an entire day or several full days.
   3. The name field is where the event is logged to the specific contact of the household or organization. For an individual record, this will default to the individual's name. Additional names can be added in this space, such as a team member from your firm.
   4. Related to is the household, individual or organization that the event is related to. This will default to the name of the record that you are currently viewing.
   5. Assigned to is where a member of your firm is assigned to the event, keeping this event on their radar.
   6. Designate the location of the event to keep track of where this specific event occurred. 
      
4. On completion of the fields, click Save. A success message will appear. Click the X on the right side to close the message.
5. The new event will appear in the Activities timeline as a new Upcoming & Overdue Activity.

Emails

Not all of your interactions with clients or prospects will happen over the phone, and sometimes it is easier to send them an email. Email messages can be created and sent from Practifi by the user, either as general messages or related to a specific Client to any email recipient.

Sending General Emails

1. Select the Global Actions icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
2. From the drop-down menu, select the Email option.
   
   
3. A panel for completing the email will appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Check the From address, supply the To and Bcc addresses, and complete the message. Optionally, add the Client Household to which this email may be associated.
4. Click the Send button to send the email.
   
   
5. Upon sending, a success message will be displayed. Click the X on the right to close the message.
   
   

Sending Client-Specific Emails

1. On the Key Entity record, select the Activities navigation icon. 
2. Select the Email tab on the Activities page.
3. From this page, you will have several fields available to enter the specific information about the event:
   1. Sender and Recipient information is input in this space. Email addresses are pulled from the record that you are generating the email from, with the option to add more emails as a primary recipient, cc or bcc.
   2. The text formatting toolbar can modify the font, text size and add further formatting through bolding, italicizing, or underlining. The toolbar also includes options for bulleted and numbered lists and the functionality to attach an image or hyperlink.
   3. Quick Text, or designated phrases that you often use and have designated to be Quick Text, can be added to the email body through this button, saving your firm time by not having to input commonly used phrases or formatting. 
   4. The email body is entered in this space. This is where you will enter the message you would like to send to the recipient. 
   5. These action buttons are where files are attached and templates are inserted. There are also buttons to preview an email, delete an email or move the email to a pop-out window in the lower right-hand corner for navigating away from the email page while still composing.
   6. Related to is where you will attach the email to the individual, household or organization of the contact of the email, which will log the email onto this record as an activity. 
4. Complete the fields, and click Send. A success message will appear. Click the X on the right side to close the message.
   
   
5. The new email entry will appear in the Activities timeline as a new activity under the calendar month that you logged it.
   

Linking to Other Records

Two fields - Name and Related To - are used across calls, events and emails to relate those records to Households, Organizations, Individuals and other records in Practifi. These are supported by multiple object-specific lookup fields, such as Related Service, which also provide connections between activities and other records. All fields are optional but required to see activities on record pages for Clients, Prospects and in various other places within Practifi.

There are some considerations to keep in mind when completing these fields:

• The Name field is used to link activities to one or more individuals.
  • Search results and values seen in this field come from the Contact object rather than the Entity object used in other lookup fields. This is the standard behavior of the Salesforce platform.
  • Because individuals are Person Accounts - a Salesforce feature that combines a Contact and an Entity (our renamed Account object) into one record - the contacts visible when searching in the Name field will correspond with individuals you've created.
• The Related To field is used to link activities to one record, which could come from one of multiple objects. Choose which object to search in the input box by using the object selector on the left. The field can be linked to:
  • An individual's parent household or organization (if applicable).
    • Select "Entities" from the object selector to link these records.
    • Remember that because individuals are Person Accounts, they'll appear in the Entity search results as well.
      • If you use this field to link to an individual, and that individual is a member of a household or organization, then upon saving the activity, the Related To field's value will be replaced by that individual's parent household/organization, and the link to the individual will be stored in the Name field.
  • To another of their related records: an asset, deal, liability, process, or service.
    
    • Upon saving the activity, the Related To field's value will be replaced by that record's parent household, organization or individual. The link to the original record will be stored in a separate lookup field.
    • Example: When logging a call, I link one of Dirk Feldman's assets in the Related To field because we talked about that portfolio during the call. Once I submit the form and save the record, the linked asset can be seen in the Related Asset/Liability field on the record page, and the Related To field contains a link to Dirk himself.
  • Records related to the firm-level activity such as campaigns or financial products.
    
    • Because the Related To field cannot support multiple values, activities cannot be linked to campaigns or financial products simultaneously as they're linked to households or organizations.
    • They can, however, be linked to individuals at the same time using the Name field.
• The related lookup fields - Asset/Liability, Entity, Division, Process and Service - each capture links to records from the objects they're named after.
  • These fields aren't available while logging activities. Still, values provided in the Related To field (see above) can cause one of these to be automatically populated when the activity is created.
  • Multiple lookups can be populated per record, but each can only contain one record link.

Due to these considerations, we recommend some approaches below to use when completing the Name and Related To fields. When logging an activity...

• For an Individual only, link them using either Name or Related To.
• For an Individual and a related record, link the Individual using Name and the related record using Related To.
• For a Household/Organization only, link them using Related To.
• For a Household/Organization and a group member, link the Household/Organization using Related To and the group member using Name.
• For a Household/Organization and a related record, link the related record using Related To, and the Household/Organization will be supplied automatically after the record is saved.
• For a Household/Organization, a member of that group and a related record, link the related record using Related To and the group member using Name. The Household/Organization will be supplied automatically after the record is saved.
• For multiple records related to a Household/Organization/Individual, link the related record using Related To, and the Household/Organization will be supplied automatically after the record is saved. Manually add additional related records using the relevant Related lookup fields.
• For a Campaign/Financial Product only, link them using Related To.
• For a Campaign/Financial Product and an Individual, link the campaign/financial product using Related To, and the Individual using Name.
• For a Campaign/Financial product and a Household/Organization, this is currently unsupported. Use multiple activities to achieve this.

Activity Views

The Salesforce Spring '23 Release recently enforced a change in the way the Activity page view is structured. Practifi has managed this update for organizations who utilize our packaged Lightning page, ensuring no change to their current view settings. Organizations using a custom Activity page in lieu of the packaged page in their Practifi instance will not have received this page reset. If your team has built a custom Activity page and would like to switch back to the Tabbed Activity Composer view, your Administrators can find the necessary steps to do so outlined in the Switch Between the Tabbed and Dynamic Activity Composer article.