Adding and managing Tasks

What is the purpose of Tasks in RealtimeCRM?

Tasks in RealtimeCRM allow you to stay on top of all you need to do both in & out of the CRM. Our Tasks system is ordered by the type of Task you have to do for example, if you were going to a deploy a new website design in order to complete a Project you would use the Project Task type. In this way as you create a Task you link it to the relevant record whether it be a Contact or Opportunity record immediately.

You can also create Personal Tasks, these differ from other Task types as they need not necessarily be associated with a record type, for example you can set a Personal Task to research customer service training courses for your own personal development.

Adding a Task

  • Click the ‘Tasks’ heading in the left hand sidebar
  • On the Tasks page, you will have a full view of all Tasks whether they have been completed or not
  • At the top of the Tasks page, if you look to the right you’ll see the  Add task  button
  • Click on on it and a drop-down menu will appear, you can then select which type of Task you want to create
  • Once you have selected your chosen Task type by clicking on it a new dialog box will open
  • All you need to do then is fill out the details of the Task and click create and your Task will be added to the system

Adding a Task to a record directly

One of the purposes of RealtimeCRM is to simplify the process of managing your data. To that end we want you to be able to do as much as possible in as few steps as possible and so you can attach Tasks directly from inside records.

For example, if you want to update a client regarding a Project you can create a Task to call them a week from now right from the Project’s record. This then saves you having to specify what Project the Task is related to. It will be already linked as add the Task.

  • Find the record you wish to add the Task to and then click on it, in this example we want add a Task to the Project record ‘Upgrade Website’
  • In the Project record scroll down until you see the ‘Tasks’ box

  • Click the  Add button and a dialog box will open within which you can fill in the Task details, the Task will automatically be linked to this record
  • Once you’ve completed the necessary fields click Create and your new Task will be added to the system

Note: For all task types excluding Personal Tasks you can go to the specific record and add them directly from there.

Assigning Tasks

For enquiries, follow ups and sales it’s always important to keep Tasks moving. Sometimes you may not be the ideal person to deal with a Task. In this case you should still raise the task but assign it to a colleague. You can do that by selecting the Assignee name from within the Task.

Tasks can be assigned to any User within RealtimeCRM.

Additionally, and optionally, you can tick the Send Notification box when assigning a Task. If this option is ticked then as soon as the Task is created, an email will be sent to the assignee notifying them and allowing them to jump to the task. This is ideal if your business uses email inbox for much of its work flow, or if the Task is more important than usual.

If you do allocate the Task to someone else then you – as the Task creator – can also get a notification when the Task is complete. The notification happens when the Task is first marked as complete and will appear both in your Notification window and by email. Again, ideal if you want to keep tabs on sensitive Tasks to ensure they are completed on time.

To get a notification when a Task that you assigned is complete just tick the Notify me when task is completed option.

Adding many Tasks into RealtimeCRM at once

Alternatively, if you have only just begun using RealtimeCRM and wish to import an existing list of Tasks all at once instead of manually entering in each one individually then you can create a CSV file and upload that with the relevant Task details into RealtimeCRM and it will automatically populate the relevant fields with this new imported information.

To do so first open an Excel spreadsheet then create headings: Title, Description, Assignee, Due Date, Record Name, Record Type and Tags. The headings refer to fields within RealtimeCRM, most are self explanatory but Record Name refers to the name of the record you wish to add the Task to, for example if you have a Contact named Harold Godwinson and wish to add a Task emailing him then the Record Name would be ‘Harold Godwinson’. If you were adding a Task regarding a specific Project then the Record Name would be the title of the relevant Project or if you were creating a Personal Task then the the name of the Record would be the name of the User to whom the Personal Task is assigned.

The Assignee refers to whom the Task is allocated to for completion, this could be yourself or another User.

What are Record Types?

The Record Type heading simply refers to what kind of a Record is the Task being assigned to, it helps link the Task to the correct Record creating a relationship between the two, the list of Record Types are as follows for each type of Task:

Personal Task: User

Project Task: Project

Opportunity Task: Opportunity

Personal Task: User

Company Task: Company

Contact Task: Contact

In addition under the heading Due Date you are able to enter the date and time the Task is required to be completed, for example let us imagine we wish to have a Task completed on the 11th April 2017 by 11am then this information is entered under the Due Date heading in the following manner: 11/04/17 11:00.

Next under the Tags heading you can enter any relevant Tags such as ‘Urgent’ to allow for this Task to appear in a filtered list and therefore be viewed more readily. Once you have populated this spreadsheet simply save it as a CSV file, you can name it ‘Tasks list’ if you wish.

Now simply head to the Tasks heading on the left hand sidebar in RealtimeCRM by clicking on it and then once on the Tasks page under the search bar click ‘Import’.

It should take you to a new page allowing you to import your Tasks. Make sure under ‘Import Type:’ select ‘Insert’ as we are importing new Tasks rather than updating existing ones.

Then simply click Select a CSV file and then open your previously created CSV ‘Tasks list’ and RealtimeCRM will automatically match the headings to the relevant fields which you can double check and change yourself via the drop-down menu options but if you are happy with the field allocations then all you need to do is click the green ‘Import Data’ button and your list of Tasks will be ready to use.

Note: If you’re importing a Personal Task then the record name will be the name of the User for whom the Personal task is for in the case above ‘Robert Jones’.