Tasks, Activities, Notes & Attachments

Owned by Jodie Miners
Last updated: May 07, 2019
4 min read

This page needs to be updated. And there are some nice things coming in Summer '19 that I need to test out. 

But here's my quick notes about how I do Latest Updates now. 


Latest Update field (Text-255). Add it to a Quick Action with the Status field and anything else that you need for a quick Update (I usually have Next Follow Up Date also rather than doing a Task). 

The do a Process Builder to post the contents of that field to Chatter with a Topic of LatestUpdate (optionally remove the value of that field, depending on your requirements). 

Set up a list view for each Record Type for Open Opportunities, filtered by One RecordType. Add the Latest Update field on there. Note that the Latest Update field MUST be on the Page Layout for the Editing from List View to work. 
Now, users can update their Latest Updates on all Opps quickly from the List View, just like they would in Excel. OR you could even set up a spreadsheet and use Google Sheets tools (free) or Enabler for Excel (paid) to bulk update them. 

The latest update is tagged with their name and date, as it's in Chatter. And anyone can click on the LatestUpdate topic and see a feed of what's happening. Or set up a Stream Alert.


OMG I HATE TASKS! See Action Views, Tasks and Report Alerts for a way to remove Tasks from your org. Do NOT ever create automated Tasks, they are evil! 

A few years ago when Chatter first came out I thought ooh wow, we will be able to replace Tasks, Activities, and Notes & Attachments related lists and clean up the page layouts. NOT SO FAST JODIE, a wise veteran said. So, I thought I would revisit this. NOPE. The Feed, as Chatter is now known, is NOT a replacement for these superfluous related lists. So Disappointing. 

I want all these GONE! and replaced with the feed. 

Well, you could delete them. But who knows a manager in an organisation that feels that they have an extra level of control because they can run a report on Calls Logged for all their staff? (hint, they don't). I bet you can name at least a dozen. 

Feed Only

Advantages 

  • Everything created in one place
  • Feed Layouts are great (except for a few annoying things like the tab order and not being available on all objects). 
  • You can view the latest posts on the view by clicking the Feed button - this shows the last 30 days of feed

  • You can get a daily digest of all posts on records you care about (by following the record). 
  • You can have conversations and keep everything in the one place - on the record. 

Things to Note

  • Files added to the feed are added to the Files related list and the Notes and Attachments related list. 
  • Links and Posts only show in the feed
  • New Notes are added to the Feed, just like files, but only show in the Notes related list. 
  • So therefore you need the Notes and the Files related lists added to the record really. 
  • Old Notes do not get posted to the feed at all - a very good reason to turn on New Notes. 
  • Attachments added from the Old related list do not get added to the Feed at all - a good reason to turn on New Notes and remove the Notes and Attachments related list completely. 
  • You can't (yet) mention a record in the feed. That would be cool.

Disadvantages

  • OMG have you ever tried to run a report on the Feed? 
    • First you have to create a custom report type - and that is annoying. 
    • The body is shown as HTML only

    • Auto Generated Posts don't appear in the report
    • Activity Posts (eg a Log a Call Quick Action where you post it to the feed does NOT show up in the report). 
    • Really quite useless. 
  • So you end up with having to do multiple reports 
    • One for Activities
    • One for the Feed
    • And ignore auto generated posts. 
    • This is not feasible. 
  • You can't create an email from the Feed, except in Case Feeds
    • OMG how good would it bee if Emails worked like they do in Case Feeds, and you could use Quick Text everywhere!?!
  • You STILL can't create custom feed filters unless (I think) you are using Service Cloud from Summer '16 - I need to check this. 
  • You can't see open tasks or upcoming activites in the feed becasue you can't filter on them. 
    • You can't even search on the word Event to filter events!

Questions

  • What happens to attachments on emails sent to Salesforce? 


More ranting to come.Â