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Activities in CRM 2013

Post Author: Joe D365 |

One of the great benefits of the upcoming CRM 2013 release is the reduced number of clicks for adding activities. Everything you want to see is easy to access. This blog will guide you through various ways of accessing and creating activities within the new CRM platform.

There are multiple places you can access activities:

  1. Home Page
  2. Create Button
  3. Record Type

We'll cover each in detail below.

Home Page

In CRM 2013, you'll be able to click on the Sales block that is placed right after the home button to show a set of bars to pop open. You'll see the Activities block below.

finding activities in CRM 2013

From here, you can either make a task, phone call, email or a regular appointment or a recurring appointment.

Create Button

On the top right corner, you will find a Create button.

This button can be used to create any record or activity in CRM. Once you click on the Create button, you'll see another set of bars open up where you can choose what activity you want to create. You'll have the option of creating a task, a phone call, an email or an appointment:

Record Type

Another way you can access activities is when you actually open a record. For example, when you open a contact record, you can click on Activities to see the different types of activities you can add to that record.

Creating an Activity

Creating activities in CRM 2013 works slightly differently than in CRM 2011. Rather than having to open multiple pages, you'll be able to access everything under one page. This makes everything much cleaner and more accessible.

Tasks

Once you click Task, a New Task page opens up. Similar to the old task, you can save it and mark as complete. You can also customize the entire task form. The only out-of-the-box required field is the subject field.

Phone calls

Phone calls are very similar to the old activity as well. You can save the phone call, mark as complete, and customize the phone record form:

The required fields are Subject, Call From, and Call To fields. The Call From field is automatically filled with the user who is responsible of creating the phone call record. However, there is also an option to add another user with the lookup field. You can write the description of the call as well as document whether it is an incoming or an outgoing call.

Email

Email activities in CRM 2013 aren't too different from the older version either. You can save and send the email, insert email templates and articles, and customize the email form. You can also attach files to the emails.

Appointments

You can set two types of appointments in CRM 2013—appointments that happen just once or recur overtime.

You also have the option for the appointment to start off as a one-time appointment and then convert it into a recurring appointment. When creating a one-time appointment, the only required fields are Subject, Start Time and End Time.

The required field lets you list out the required attendees, and you can add more than one participant. You also have the option of choosing one of the following types of attendees:

You have the ability to choose the optional attendees by using the Optional field. You can also choose more than one attendee.

Subject is just a text field used to provide a name for that event. You can select the Location of the event by typing the location field, which is not required. The Regarding field lets you state what the event is about. You have a list to choose from:

At that point you're required to enter the date and time for the event. In order to make the one-time occurring event to a recurring event, select the Recurrence button.

At this point, another page will open up where you can set the time, duration, recurrence pattern as well as the range of the recurrence.

recurring activities in CRM 2013

Activities are great assets to CRM, and CRM 2013 has made the process of accessing and creating activities easier than ever.

Have fun exploring and happy CRM'ing!

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

11 comments on “Activities in CRM 2013”

  1. Hey Mr. CRM ;
    One month ago, my team installed CRM 2011 at our company (the first time any of us .Net/SharePoint developers had seen it). Our first phase required us to create a customer visit report using web resources, json calls, ajax, etc. We created the entity as an activity, and I was able to use the excellent "RibbonEditor" to add our own custom activity button fro the trip report.
    Well, yesterday we managed to upgrade to 2013, and of course, the ribbon is gone, along with my lovely custom button 😉 Any insight into how we add custom buttons to 2013 for activities? My custom activity came across fine with the 2011 customizations solution, but of course it only shows up under "Other Activities"!

  2. Nice article. We seem to have lost the ability to attach a file to a task in CRM 2013. Is this possible?

    1. Hi - we just tested this with crm 2015 and we can still attach a file, but it is a bit hidden. After saving a task, expand notes, and when you create a note you can then add an attachment.

      1. I don't follow your process for adding an attachment to a task in crm 2105 . After saving a task where is that your attachment is associated with the task ? I don't see Notes anywhere on the OOTB task form.

  3. Thanks for the overview. I've also noticed as L.Graham did that it seems we have lost the ability to add an attachement to a task. Is there another way to achieve this?

  4. I could not find a way to set an activity status to something else than "open". Is it possible to change an activity status at all?

  5. I have a recurring activity planned for every Friday in
    Outlook. Most Fridays I complete the task scheduled, but sometimes I
    don’t.

    How do I show that today’s activity was completed so it will
    show in CRM?

    1. Hi - Are the appointments created in outlook or crm. If the appointments are created in outlook they will NOT synchronize to crm until you click 'track in crm'. If the appointments are created in crm, they will synchronize to your outlook (if you are using sss or the outlook crm client) and be in sync -- if you complete it in outlook or a mobile device, it will synchronize to crm.

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