The Activity timeline is a really powerful feature within FreeAgent CRM. It allows you to visualize any current or past activities for all the records in your different apps, meaning your contacts, organizations, opportunities, or any custom ones you have created.
Here you can see any sent or received emails, phone calls placed to any contact, notes, or mentions to your team members as well as attachments.
Edition Qualifier: The filter feature is available in all FreeAgent Editions.
User Permissions: This feature is available for all users in FreeAgent CRM.
In this tutorial we will review everything that you need to know about the Activity Timeline, including some of its most powerful features:
- Activity Roll-Up
- Upload Files
- Delete Activities
- Share Activities
- Apply Filters
- Star Activities
- Timeline in Hazel
Note: if you are now on Hazel, the functionality of Activity Timeline has been enhanced within Timeline. Refer to Timeline Events for Hazel.
Activity Roll-Up
When enabled, the Activity Roll-Up automatically shares activities between the 3 out-of-the-box Apps in FreeAgent CRM: Contacts, Accounts, and, Opportunities. There are 3 main rules for shared activities:
- From Contacts to Opportunities
- From Contacts to Accounts
- From Accounts to Opportunities
This means that if you added a note for a Contact, it will be also visible from the corresponding Account and if the contact has a Opportunity associated the note will be available in the Opportunities as well. There will be a legend at the bottom of all shared activities.
Your team administrator can deactivate them all, as there is a manual process to share activities between apps described below. To learn more about Activity Roll-Up, please visit the following tutorial:
Activity Roll-Up
Note: Changing the settings will only impact the activities created from that point forward.
Upload File
You can upload any file of the admitted formats mentioned above to your Apps. To do so, click on the desired app and select the entry for which you want to upload a file. On the Activity timeline, click the 'Action' button to display the available options and then click 'Add attachment'.
The admitted formats for files include pdf, csv, zip, Microsoft Office suite, Apple iWork. For Images, the supported formats are jpg, png, gif. The file size can be up to 10MB.
Click on it. This will open your computer's file manager. Browse your files and select the one you want to upload and click 'Open'. Wait a few seconds for the upload process to conclude. As soon as it is done, a Success message will appear on the top right corner and the attachment will be visible in the activity section.
Delete Activities
You can delete activities across your different apps, whether they are notes, emails, attachments.
IMPORTANT: This process cannot be undone. Verify before deleting the Activity, as it will be removed for everyone.
The option to delete activities is available for all apps that include the 'Activity Timeline'. To delete an activity, go to the desired app and in the 'Activity' section, hover over any of the 'Activities' with your mouse to display the 3 dots icon on the top right corner of the activity card. Hover over the 3 dots to show the available options. There click 'Delete Item'.
Confirmation is required. Once you do, the selected activity will be deleted from the Activity timeline and will no longer be available for anyone in your team.
There are some cases where the 'Delete Item' option will not be available for an activity.
When you delete an activity that has been shared from other Apps following the steps described above, you will be deleting the source activity, meaning it will be deleted from all over. If you only need to delete a single shared activity, please visit the Delete Shared Activities section of this tutorial.
Share Activities
Have you ever added a note or received an email for one of your contacts or in any other element within your existing apps, but you also needed to see it somewhere else? If this is the case, then we have the solution! This is made possible thanks to the function that allows you to share activities between your apps in FreeAgent CRM.
Activity sharing is available for all apps that include the Activity Timeline. To start sharing activities, go to the desired app and hover over any of the activities with your mouse, you will notice an arrow right next to the 'trash can' icon used to delete content.
Click on the arrow and the sharing options will appear. Here you can select between all your existing Apps to share your activity. Then you need to either select one of the suggested entries or you can start typing to find the specific element to share the activity.
The 'Share On' shows the detail of the places where the activity has been shared already. Once you click the 'Share' button, your activity will be shared and added to this list.
At the same time, the activity will be available on the target element. Right below the user's name, there will be a legend that indicates that the activity was shared and will include its origin, which you can click on to go to it.
Delete Shared Activities
If you have shared activities from one App to another and you would like to delete only the shared activity then you will need to go to the Source record. Here, search for the Source activity and hover over the 3 dots to show the available options. There click on 'Share Item'.
This will open the Share activities window. At the bottom of the windows, you will find the 'Shared On' section. To delete the Shared activity all you need to do is click the 'X' icon that will appear when you hover over the record's name.
Apply Filters
It is possible to apply filters in your Activity Timeline, to view only those entries that you are interested in. You can select just one or more types of activities in your filters, by clicking the filter icon available on the right-hand side of the Activity section right next to the search icon.
You will know if one or more activity types were added to the filter thanks to the small badge that will show the total selected.
Filters in the Activity Timeline allow you to easily visualize the different types of activities in each of your records.
Star Activities
You can Star activities in the Activity Timeline so that it is easier for you to find them whenever you need them. 'Starring' activities is simple, all you need to do is hover over with your mouse cursor over an activity to display the options. There you will notice a little star right next to the Share icon.
If you open the filters and select the Starred you can display all your currently starred activities. Your Starred activities will be highlighted in light-yellow so that they are easily recognizable. They will also display the star icon along with the legend "starred item".
In case you want to remove an activity from the Starred ones, just hover over the activity to display the options and click the Star icon again.
Timeline in Hazel
If you are now on Hazel, Activity Timeline is now simply Timeline. You are no longer limited to just activities. You can create custom events and dictate exactly what events and information show in your Timeline.
You can also edit these events once they are in the Timeline to keep your team updated on any record in any App. Get started here: Timeline Events for Hazel.