Salesforce - Activities and Chatter

Activities and Chatter are sets of collaboration tools that you can use on almost every record in Salesforce.

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Generally, these components can be found on the right side of your screen when you are on an individual record page.

Each tool does something different for you.

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Activity and Chatter Tools

Each time you use Activity or Chatter, you create a Feed Item that will show up below this section and place all of the information to the record in time.

In addition to creating a timeline, each item that shows up in the Chatter Feed will allow for threading on the item. You can further collaborate with your team members or add follow-up notes to existing feed items and continue the conversation.

Chatter

Chatter is the best tool for internal collaboration and communication around specific records.

Post

The post is the simplest of these tools. Click on Share an update… to open the Chatter publisher. This is rich text field, so you can format your note, include links, attachments, or images, and mention anyone who needs the information.

When you’re ready, click Share to publish your Post.

Question

To ask a Question, you have to enter the question. This field is plain text, so there is no formatting available. However, below the question, you can add additional information using the rich text publisher below. This second field has the same functionality as a simple Post.

When you’re ready, click Ask to publish your Question.

Poll

To create a Poll, ask your question. Below the question, add at least two choices for participants to choose from. You can add up to 10 choices. All fields in the Poll are plain text fields no formatting available, as with the Question field.

When you’re ready, click Ask to publish your Poll.

Activities

Activities are different from Chatter publications. Each new Activity is a new record that can be related to multiple other records. There are required fields based on the type of Activity that it is, and each must be assigned to an active User at the time of creation. Activities can be helpful because they may show up on home pages, they can create reminders for you, and they are reportable.

You can view activities in order of time, regardless of type of activity, from the feed on the main page of your record. You can also view certain activities by type in related lists for additional information. All activities are sorted by completed date.

The available Activity fields may include:

• Subject, or the title to indicate the purpose of the Activity

• Description or Comments, or what the Activity is about

• Status of the Activity (if applicable)

• A Date to place it in time

• Related Contact

• Related Record, of the Object of your choice

• Assignee, which must be an active User at the time of creation

You can relate new Activities to the Contact involved if there is one. You also have the ability to pick one other Object record depending on what you are working on. This second record can be anything that you have access to edit, e.g., Course Offering, Case, Asset, Event, etc.

Tasks

Tasks are best used for future reminders for you or someone else. In particular, Tasks should be created for anything that requires immediate action.

Calls and Events

Calls and Events mark conversations and meetings in time and associate the results or any notes with the related records.

Creating Activities from anywhere

In addition to creating activity history from individual records, you also have Global Actions. At the top of every page, you will have the option to create Tasks, Events, and Calls.

In the top right corner of every page within Salesforce, there are a set of icons.

Click on the plus icon to open the Global Actions list.

Click on the Activity you want to create to open a creation screen in the bottom right of the screen.

Email

Emails in Salesforce are similar to any other emails, with the additional power of Salesforce involved

• You can choose a Contact Record in either the To or Cc fields. If you enter an email that is associated with a contact, Salesforce will relate that Contact for you. If you enter an email that is not associated with a Contact, you can still send the email, but it won’t be associated with any Contacts.

• You will have access to one or more authorized emails, depending on your role. Choose the correct email address for your message. Whichever email you choose to send from will be the reply-to email for the recipients. Be sure to choose the email address you want to use to receive responses.

• Write out your Subject. Salesforce will let you send an email without a subject, so be sure to check it before you click Send.

• The body of the email is a rich text field, just like the Chatter publisher, along with some additional options.

In addition to the standard functionality of emails, Salesforce provides a few extra features.