Best Uses of Activities & Notes in CRM

Activities & Notes – Flexibility Comes at a Price

Dynamics 365 is an incredibly flexible solution providing users with many options but flexibility can come at a price. Sometimes less is more…

Best Practices for Tracking Activities & Notes in Dynamics 365

Users have the ability to create Activities (emails, appointments, phone calls, etc ) and Notes in Dynamics 365 but beware of the differences before you decide what is best for your business process.

Where do I Create or Track my Activity?

Whether you are creating an Activity or a Note we recommend it be created at the most specific record. For example, if you had an Opportunity for an Account, this would be the most specific record but if you only had a Contact for an Account, this would be the record to use.

Activities vs Notes

Two powerful features of Dynamics 365 are the search capabilities and the “roll-up”functionality. When an Activity is created or tracked against a Contact or Opportunity, the system automatically “rolls up” the Activity to the associated Account allowing users to see all communication at the Account level. This is not the case with Notes.
It is often recommended not to use Notes in Dynamics 365 for the following reasons:
1. They are not “searchable”
2. They do not roll-up ( ie. from a Contact to Account )
For those that use Activities and Notes in CRM users enjoy the ease of creation, the date/time stamp that is captured at the time of creation as well as the ability to attach files.

Have the Best of Both Worlds– Our Recommendation

At Dominic Systems we recommend adding a new Activity Type called “Note Activity” that works much like a Phone Call activity but give the users a “Note” option that is searchable and rolls up. We can hide the standard Note functionality so that there is less confusion and more consistency.
Less is more… We can explain further. Get in touch.