Emails and Activities: Tasks

In MYOB Acumatica, you can create tasks that are associated with entities related to customer relationship management (CRM), such as leads, contacts, business accounts, mass emails, marketing lists, marketing campaigns, opportunities, sales quotes, and cases; the tasks may also be associated with projects, project tasks, project quotes, customers, vendors, and employees. While viewing any of these entities on its data entry form, you can create a task associated with it and track all tasks (and other activities) related to the entity.

Creation and Tracking of Tasks for an Entity

You can create a task associated with any of these entities by clicking the Create Task button on the table toolbar of the Activities tab of any of the following forms:

When you click the Create Task button, the Task (CR306020) form opens in a pop-up window, where you can specify the needed details. By default, the system inserts your username in the Owner box of the Details tab, but you can reassign the task to another owner. When you have saved the task and closed the form, the system adds a row with the Task type to the Activities tab of the form.

On the Activities tab, you can view the details of the task (or any listed activity) by clicking the link in the Summary column of the appropriate row, which opens the task on the form used to create it (which varies depending on the activity type) in a pop-up window.

In the Related Entity box of the Task form, the system inserts the entity that is associated with the task if a user has created the task from the data entry form of the entity. If the user changes the related entity of the task, the summary information about the task will be added to the Activities tab of the form for the new entity. The task will no longer be associated with the entity that was previously selected in this box.

If the task is not canceled or completed, you can associate it with any existing task by selecting this task in the Parent Activity box of the Task form. If the parent task has been associated with a project, the system copies this project (and project task, if one has been specified) to the Project and Project Task boxes of the Task form for the child task.

If a system administrator has enabled the use of reminders in MYOB Acumatica, you can set up a reminder for a task. On the Details tab of the Task form, you select the Reminder check box and specify on which day and time before the due date the task owner should receive the reminder (in the Remind At box). On the specified date and time, the reminder will appear on the task owner’s MYOB Acumatica screen so that the creator or the owner can complete the task or change its status. For the information about how to turn on reminders, see To Enable Reminders.

Copying of Lead-Related Tasks to Related Entities

If you create tasks related to a lead, and then you create a contact or business account for the lead or convert the lead to an opportunity, the system copies all the tasks (and other activities) listed on the Activities tab of the Leads (CR301000) form to the same tab of the Contacts (CR302000), Business Accounts (CR303000), or Opportunities (CR304000) form, respectively. The system copies the activities to the opportunity from the lead only if the Show Activities from the Source Lead check box is selected on the Opportunity Classes (CR209000) form for the opportunity class that is specified in the Opportunity Class box of the Create Opportunity dialog box. Thus, the system preserves the history of tasks and other activities created for the lead and copies this history to the entities associated with the lead.

Tip: Tasks that you create on the Contacts, Business Accounts, and Opportunities forms are associated with only the entity (contact, business account, or opportunity) for which they have been created.

Task Management

By using the Event and Task Categories (EP204040) form, you can create a list of task categories and provide a color code for each category. If you do, when you open the list of your tasks on the Tasks (EP4040PL) form, you will see the tasks highlighted with colors corresponding to the categories.

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.

Notifications About Assigning a Task to an Owner

In MYOB Acumatica, a system administrator can set up the automatic built-in notifications about the assigning of tasks with the Open or Processing status. You can receive these notifications by email in the following scenarios:

  • If you are assigned to a new task and the creator of the task is other user.

    To start sending notifications about these events, the system administrator should activate the CRNewTask business event on the Business Events (SM302050) form.

  • If you are the owner of a related entity (such as a lead, a contact, a business account, an opportunity, or a case) and one of the following events for which you are not the creator has happened:
    • A task has been created for the related entity and assigned to another user.
    • An existing task associated with the related entity has been reassigned to another user.
    • An existing task has been recently associated with this related entity and assigned to other user.

      To start sending notifications about these events, the system administrator should activate the CRNewThirdPartyTask business event on the Business Events form.

For details, see Business Events.