Emails and Activities: Events

In MYOB Advanced, an event is a record on the Event (CR306030) form that represents a scheduled occurrence, such as an appointment or conference call, that is typically attended by multiple people. You can create an event by clicking Create Event on the Activities tab of the following forms, which associates the event with the entity selected on the form:

An event has a date, start time, and end time. You can create an event and invite leads, contacts, employees, and persons whose data has not been entered in the system. Also, you can receive email notifications about events created by other users.

Form Layout for an Event Owner

For the owner of the event selected on the Event (CR306030) form, the form toolbar has the Complete and Cancel buttons, and the More menu has the equivalent commands. On the Details tab, the event owner can enter and change the summary settings of the event, such as date, time, priority, and location.

The owner can also select the time zone in which the start time and end time of the event are being specified. This can be the time zone relevant to the owner or the time zone of most event attendees.

By default, the system inserts the event creator's name in the Owner box. If the event creator selects another employee in the Owner box, the creator sees the form layout that is viewed by a potential attendee. (For details, see the following section.)

In the Related Entity box, the entity that is associated with the event is shown if the owner has created the event from the data entry form of the entity. For example, if a user was viewing a lead on the Leads (CR301000) form and created the event from that form, this lead will be specified in the box by default. (The user would also be the default owner of the event.) On the Leads form, the system adds the summary information about the event in a row of the Activities tab. If the owner changes the related entity of the event, the summary information about the event will be added to the Activities tab of the form for the new entity. The event will no longer be associated with the entity that was previously selected in this box.

On the Attendees tab, the event owner can list potential attendees. In the Contact column, the owner can select a potential attendee among the leads, contacts, and employees defined in the system. The event's owner can also add a potential attendee whose data has not been added to the system by leaving the Contact column empty and manually specifying the person's email address in the Email column. For the owner, the Invite and Invite All buttons appear on the table toolbar. The owner can click the buttons to cause the system to send notification emails to a potential attendee or all listed potential attendees. In the Invitation column, the status of each potential attendee's invitation is shown. The event owner can define any of the listed attendees as optional by selecting the Optional check box.

On the Activities tab, the event owner can create any emails and activities that are related to the event. For each email or activity, the system adds a row to the table with the summary information about this event or activity. The table also lists all the activities that have been created for the event, including invitations sent to potential attendees. The event owner can delete any row in the table.

Form Layout for a Potential Attendee of an Event

For a potential attendee of the event selected on the Event (CR306030) form, the form toolbar has the Accept and Decline buttons, and the More menu has the equivalent commands.

On the Details and Attendees tabs, all of the UI elements are unavailable for editing.

Actions that Cause the Sending of Event-Related Notification Emails

If an event owner has added potential attendees to an event on the Attendees tab of the Event (CR306030) form, the system sends notification emails to the email addresses of the potential attendees based on the actions of the event owner as follows:

  • An event invitation to all potential attendees while the event is being saved for the first time: When an event's owner clicks Save on the form toolbar, the Confirmation dialog box is displayed with the following text: At least one potential attendee has been selected. The invitations will be sent to all selected potential attendees. If the event's owner clicks Confirm, the system sends the event invitations to all potential attendees, and the invitation status for all added potential attendees in the Invitation column changes from Not invited to Invited. The system also sends the invitations to all potential attendees with the Not invited invitation status if the event's owner clicks Invite All on the table toolbar of the Attendees tab and clicks Confirm in the Confirmation dialog box, which displayed the following text: The invitations will be sent to only the potential attendees who have not been invited.
  • An event invitation to all potential attendees or to only newly added attendees: If a new potential attendee has been added to the previously saved event and the event's owner clicks Save on the form toolbar, the Confirmation dialog box is displayed with the following text: At least one potential attendee has been selected. The invitations will be sent to all selected potential attendees. If the event's owner clicks Confirm, the system sends the invitations either to all potential attendees with the Not invited invitation status or to only newly added attendees.
  • An event invitation to selected attendee: If the event's owner has added any attendees to the Attendees tab and wants to send the invitation to one of them, the event's owner can click the row with the attendee to receive the invitation. The owner then clicks Invite on the table toolbar. The system sends the invitation to only the selected attendee.
  • A notification to all potential attendees if the event has been rescheduled: If the event's owner changed the time, date, or both time and date of the event and clicks Save on the form toolbar, the Confirmation dialog box is displayed with the following text: The invited potential attendees will be notified about the new start time of the event. If the event's owner clicks Confirm, the system sends the invitations to all potential attendees of the event. The invitation status for all attendees is changed to Rescheduled.
  • A notification to all potential attendees if the event has been canceled: If the event's owner deletes the event after the invitations to all potential attendees have been sent, the Confirmation dialog box is displayed with the following text: The invitations that have already been sent will be canceled. If the event's owner clicks Confirm, the system sends the notifications that event has been canceled to all potential attendees and deletes the event.
  • A notification about the cancellation of the event to a particular potential attendee: The system sends this notification if the event's owner deletes the invited potential attendee on the Attendees tab, saves the changes, the start time of the event is not later than the event's end time and date, and the attendee's invitation status is Invited, Accepted, or Rescheduled.

Maintenance Settings that Affect Events

On the Event Setup (EP204070) form, a system administrator can configure the way the system sends automatic notification emails to potential attendees of an event when the event's owner performs particular actions on the Event (CR306030) form.

The system can be configured to use the simple notification emails that are built into the functionality of the Event form. Alternatively, the administrator can create notification templates and specify on the Event Setup form which template is used for each scenario: inviting potential attendees, rescheduling an event, and canceling an event. The notification templates provide the ability to use placeholders to personalize the emails the system generates.

By using the Event and Task Categories (EP204040) form, a system administrator can add, view, edit, and delete the categories to be used for events and tasks, including optionally specifying the color of highlighting to be used for each category. The event categories may help users prioritize the events. On the Events (EP4041PL) form, if highlighting has been defined for the category of a listed event, it is shown in the Category column.

For details about event setup, see Managing Events and Notifications About Events.

Ability to Add User-Defined Fields to CRM Forms

User-defined fields are site-specific elements that have been defined to track information deemed as important to the organization. A customizer—a user with particular access rights in the system—can add user-defined fields to the Leads (CR301000), Contacts (CR302000), Business Accounts (CR303000), Opportunities (CR304000), Sales Quotes (CR304500), Cases (CR306000), Activity (CR306010), Task (CR306020), and Event (CR306030) form. From any of these forms, the customizer can open the Edit User Defined Fields (CS205020) form by clicking Manage User-Defined Fields in the Customization menu on the form title bar and specify a set of user-defined fields for the form.

On the Properties tab of the Edit User Defined Fields form, the Activity Type box has been added. This box is shown only when you open this form from the Activity, Task, or Event form. If you select an activity type in the Activity Type box, the set of user-defined fields applicable to this activity type will be shown.

If user-defined fields have been added for a data entry form of an activity, the original information in the Summary area of the form is displayed on the Document tab. The added user-defined fields are displayed on the User-Defined Fields tab of the Summary area. For a task or event, the added user-defined fields are displayed on the User-Defined Fields tab of the corresponding data entry form. On this tab, by using these fields, you can easily specify additional information about records they are working with. For details, see Attributes and User-Defined Fields.

Copying of User-Defined Fields Between Activities, Tasks, Events, and Other Entities

The values of user-defined fields can be copied between activities on the Activity (CR306010) form, tasks on the Task (CR306020) form, events on the Event (CR306030) form and an associated entity to which user-defined fields can be added.

In this context, the original record is the record from which the associated record is created. If you create an activity, task, or event from another task, event, or any entity in the system to which user-defined fields can be added, and both the original entity and the new entity has any of the same user-defined fields, the values of these fields are automatically copied to the new entity.

If both the new entity (activity, task, or event) and the original entity have default values that are defined for the same user-defined field, the field value from the original entity is copied to the corresponding field of the new entity.

For more details about the copying of user-defined fields between CRM entities, see Leads: General Information, Business Accounts: General Information, Contacts: General Information, Opportunities: General Information, or Cases: General Information.