Module: Tasks

Description

Tasks allow you to log every interaction you have with your customers. These items are available to you and also to external customers if you provide them access to the private customer portal.

Key Features

• Tied to Accounts/Leads and Users.
• Customers can enter their own tasks with the full task form or a subset of of features.
• Logging of information is done through an unlimited number of business defined categories.
• Attach documents to further add details and supporting information to the task.
• Tie in customer SLA (Service Level Agreements) to get items done quickly.
• Auto-assign to those you designate.
• Email notifications to the support team as well as the customer.
• Integration with VoIP (Voice-Over-IP) systems.

Requirements

You will need to have a valid system login that has been granted access to the Tasks module.

Sample Screenshot

Click for the full size version of the image.

Adding & Editing

• Base Information: Who the task applies to, what the category of the task is, brief description of the task, and the task number of the task.
  • Regarding: What the task is regarding (e.g., Account/Lead or Users)
    • Note: When you look at the regarding you will see an icon for a building (Accounts) or a person (Users). If you click on this a new tab will open and display the record that the task is connected to.
  • Category: The assigned category to the task. The default assigned categories are:
    • Appointment
    • Bug Fix
    • Content Writing
    • Development
    • Email
    • Feature Request
    • General Inquiry
    • Graphic Design
    • Headshots
    • Letter
    • Maintenance
    • Meeting (In Office)
    • Meeting (Out of Office)
    • New Work
    • Phone Call
    • Project
    • Software Development
    • Training
    • Video
  • Description (Short): A brief description of the task. Think of this as the cover or a chapter of a book. Short and sweet that gives an indication of what is inside.
  • Task Number: The human readable version of the task. This number is created once the task is saved. The format will vary with the default format being the account code with -TASK- in the middle and an auto-incrementing number.
• Task Information: Core information about what is happening with the task including the anticipated (requested) completion date.
  • Status: The status of the task. When a task is started the status is set to Not Started.
    • Cancelled
    • Complete
    • In Progress
    • Not Started
    • Waiting on Customer
  • Priority: The priority or urgency of the task.
    • High
    • Low
    • Normal
  • Assigned To: Who the task is assigned to. If this is an account the system will pull in the assigned customer support personnel into this field. You can also add your own assignments when creating. You can have an unlimited number of people assigned to the task.
    • Note 1: It is recommended to have only the people needed on the task assigned here. If others need to be notified only and are not directly working on the task add them to the notfiy option below.
    • Note 2: Whenever a save is done those in the assigned to will receive an email notification.
  • Notify: This is who should be notified of changes or the task completion. This is often the person that is requesting the task. You can have an unlimited number of people in the notification.
  • Start Date: This is the start date for the task. It will default to the current date.
  • Due Date: This is the anticipated due date. If this is an account it will look for the SLA hours in the system and add it to the start date. This should be set to the date that is requested to be done or the date it is expected to be done.
  • Completed Date: The actual date the task was completed.
  • % Complete: If the status is In Progress it is often beneficial to let those in the notify or looking at the task how far along you feel the task is. If you are unsure of an exact percentage use your best judgement on how far you feel you are done.
  • Estimated Hours: This is how many hours you expect the task to take.
  • Billable Hours: This is the actual number of hours the task took. Even though this says billable hours it truly refers to how many hours a task took as not all tasks are billable.
  • Send Notice to Client on Change: Whenever a save happens an email should go out to those in the notify box.
  • Send Notice to Client on Complete: When the task is complete an email will go out to those in the notify box.
  • Save to Tracker: Tracker is the bug tracking system for software development. Often a task is made that needs to be immediately addressed but also tracked for the software developers. This allows when the initial task is created that a bug tracking event happens at the same time to eliminate having to create a bug tracker report.
  • Billable: If this task should be billed to the account/user.
  • Billed: For accounting to mark that they have billed the account/user.
  • Task Complete: When checked the task is complete. The system will automatically change the status to Complete, completed date is set to the current date, the percentage complete to 100%, and send out appropriate notfications.
• Task Details: The requested details of the work to be done to achieve a completed task status.
  • Description: This should have as much detail as possible to help those doing the task complete the task.
• Documents: Documents that add support to the request. These items can be Word, PDF, Image, Video, and other files.
  • Category: The category of the document being uploaded.
    • Note: If uploading multiple documents all of them will be assigned this category. If you need each to have different categories upload them separately.
  • Active: Whether the uploaded document should be marked active (default is on).
  • Description: The short description of the uploaded file(s).
  • Document Date: The date of the documents.
  • Start Date: The start date of the document.
  • End Date: The end date of availability of the document.
  • File(s): The file(s) to be uploaded.
  • Views: How many times the files have been viewed.
  • Description (Long): Longer description and details of the upload document(s).
• Miscellaneous: Information that has been used in the past to track specific items related to a task and help integrate into business processes.
  • Full Name: The persons name who entered the task.
  • Email Address: The email address related to the person who entered the task.
  • Phone Number: The phone number related to the person who entered the task.
  • Quantity: If you have a reason for having a specific quantity add that here.
  • Price: If this task has a specific dollar value this is where you would add that.
  • Mileage: If driving was involved for the task you can enter the number of miles driven here.
  • Expenses: If there are business expenses related to this task you can put them here.
  • Related Task(s): If this task is related to other tasks you can set that here.
  • Tags: Assign tags for future reference on the task.
  • Created By: This is the person that originally created the task.
  • Created Date: This is the original date/time the task was created.
• Work Notes: Once a task is created this is where you add additional information and details that support the task. This can be additional information from the customer or the customer support person doing the work on the task.
  • Work Notes: Notes that are visible to everyone. This can be either work being done or additional notes from thew person that requested the task.
  • Work Notes (Internal Only): These notes are only available to those that are administrators. These are internal notes about this specific task.

Tips & Tricks

• Regular / Portal users once a task is created have access to a limited number of items to make certain the integrity of the original task submission is kept.
• Administrators have full access to all fields within tasks.
• You can integrate task creation with many VoIP (Voice-Over-IP) systems.