How to Manage Activities with Dynamics Calendar

1. How to Manage Activities with Dynamics Calendar Activities in Dynamics 365 are tasks related to customer entity like a call, setting up a meeting, appointment, sending pricing quotes or emails, etc. You can assign these activities toyourself or other team members. Herethequestion arises, howcanyou make themostoutofthem? For example, if you are in a meeting with your customers, you need to be specific with what they are looking for in your services. Did they ask for enhancements in your currentpackage or expressed concerns for budgets? Or any highlights of the meeting. Chances are that you might forget these littledetails. In such cases, you can open your Dynamics CRM in mobile and add these notes in the specific appointment created for the meeting. This can help you focus on the details leading to more clients foryour organization. So, let’s see how you can manage activities in Dynamics CRM to make the most out ofit.

2. Step 1: Find youractivities: →Click on the sitemap and select activities. From the list, select an activity type tomanage a particular activity. You can perform the following operations on any activity with the default Dynamics calendar: Add activity Forcustomer: You can add activity associated with a particular customer, account, or another type of record. To do so,

3. Opentherecordforwhichyouwanttocreatetheactivity. • In the Timeline section, click on ‘+’, and from the drop-down list, select the type of activity you want tocreate. • Foryourself: • In the site map, selectActivities. • From the command bar, select an activitytype.

4. - Once you are done filling in the details, click on save to save the particularactivity. You can also add other people to the record or contact based on who’s handling that particular customer. As you work with that customer over a period of time, it can help you maintain its history and see what can be done for better outcomes.Add task or note for yourself to remember something important, add new activities and assign it to others, mark it complete, etc. to manage itfurther. Challenges with default activitymanagement: Managing activities this way means a lot of back and forth and wasted time. Every time you will have to select the record, create an activity and then manage its related activities. To cut down this back and forth, you can look for a calendar solution or extension which providesaunifiedinterfacetoconductalltheoperationsfromasingle screen. In this blog, we’ve taken Calendar 365, aDynamics CRM Calendar, to show how you can manage activities from a single calendar screen. If required you can view your team’s schedule via a shared calendar and assign activities to them aswell. Let’s see how you can manage activities from a sharedcalendar. Step 1: After installing Calendar 365, navigate to the left panel and select the Calendar 365 option.

5. Step 2: Click on ‘View Calendar’ from the second panel and then click on the select calendar to select the view/sharedcalendar.

6. Step3:Checktheavailabletimeslotforthedaytoassignactivitiestousers.Step3:Checktheavailabletimeslotforthedaytoassignactivitiestousers. Step4:Clickontheavailabletimeslottocreateactivity. Step 5: Select the activity type from theavailable options.

7. Step6:Add detailsregarding,subject,priority,addingnotes,etc.andclickoncreate. Here are the fields explained indetail: Activity: To select the type. It can be an appointment, phone call, meeting, task,SMS, etc. Subject: Add something to remember the activity from. It will be displayed on yourcalendar aswell. Regarding:Here youcanselecttherecord,regardingwhichyouarecreatingthisactivity. DateRange:Selectadaterange duringwhichyouwillbeworkingonthisactivity. Priority: As there would be multiple activities in your calendar, you can set its priority to manage the overallschedule. Description:Add notesoranyotherrequireddetails.Ithelps yourememberhighlights. Apartfromtheseoptions,basedonyouractivitytype,youwillgetotheroptionslikeforFax, Phone calls you get extra fields like To, Phone numbers,etc.

8. Step 7: Once you are done creating an activity, it will be displayed like below on the calendar.Whenyouhoveronit,itwilldisplaythetooltipwithalltherequireddetails. You can work further on this activity, and access it whenever needed. For example, if this activity is an appointment, you can mark it completed once your meeting is completed with thatperson.Andlater,youcaneditthedetailsfromthecalendar. Toeditthisactivity,clickontheactivityfromthecalendarandthispopupwillbedisplayed.

9. From there you can perform various operations like edit the appointment details, change its status,markitcompleted,make itacase,etc.andit getsupdatedinCRMaswell. How to ManageUnscheduled Activities in Dynamics CRM: There might be situations when you would have to manage sudden priority work in your schedule. Those are considered as unscheduledactivities. Tomanagetheunscheduledactivities,it is importanttochecktheActivebox. On enabling the Unscheduled Activities option, you can manage unscheduled appointments and service activities without attendees and assigned resources respectively from the calendar. After enabling the Unscheduled Activities option from the configuration, the button will appear on the header on the main calendarpage. Byclickingonit,therewillbeadialogboxwithalistofUnscheduled Activities. Select the start date, end date, and activity type to create the view ofunscheduled activities as required. You can also type in the subject line in the search box to look for a particular activity.

10. If the activity type is ‘appointment’, it will show all the appointments that don’t have any required attendeesassigned. • To assign attendees to an appointment, select appointment as the ‘activity type’ from the dropdown, select activities and click on Set Requiredbutton. • By clicking on the ‘Set Required’ button, it will open a dialog box to select the required attendee. • Select the attendee as required and click on the Savebutton.

11. After saving, attendees get assigned and that activity gets removed from the list of unscheduledactivities. • If ‘activity type’ is a service activity, the list will have all the service activities that don’t have resources assigned. • To assign resources to the service activity, select service activity as the activity type from thedropdown,selecttheserviceandclickonSetResourcebutton. By clicking on the ‘Set Resource’ button, a dialog box will open. From there, select the required resource and click on the Savebutton.

12. - After saving, resources get assigned and that activity gets removed from the list of unscheduledactivities. OriginalBlog: https://www.appjetty.com/blog/how-to-manage-activities-with-dynamics-calendar