Here's a Contact Process question for you: 

I've build some Contact Processes that include "question" and "dialogue" boxes to fire off various processes based on the user response.  After the process is run, the "question" or "dialogue" displays in the Notes/History tab.  Since I probably can't prevent the "question" or "dialogue" from writing to the History table, is there an easy way to filter the Notes/History tab so it will only display the common Activity types (phone/meeting/to-do/etc.)?

 

Thanks.

 

Jerry,

 

Yes, you can filter the types of Notes/History that appear in the Notes/History tab.

1. Try this on your test system first and backup your database before applying changes.
2. Go into the Picklist Manager and open the picklist for Activity Types.
3. Find the "order number" for the type of activity that you would like to exclude. For example, Database Change = 262156
4. Write that number or numbers down.
5. Next, go to Architect and open the Notes/History Form.
6. Open the Properties window.
7. Go to the SQL Property and click on the ellipses on the right side of that field.
8. A Window very much like the Query Builder opens.
9. Click on the Conditions tab.
10. There are a couple of existing conditions, you can add another condition to exclude the type of Notes/History that you do not wish to see.
11. Your conditions should look something like this.
1. History.type is not equal to 262162 or
2. History.type is not equal to 262156 or
3. History.userid is equal to UserID  End.
12. Click on OK.
13. Save and release your Form.
14. This would need to be done on the Notes/History Form for each of the Entities (Contact, Account, Opportunities)

Hi Dale,

 

I am looking for a solution to the clutter our company is experiencing in the Notes/History and I believe the idea you mention above may provide the answer! Can any of the following issues be solved with this same filtering system?

 

1. Currently, when a sales process is performed it leaves many Notes/History entries from the steps of the process. All of these entries are listed as PROC in the Category field. These entries are of no use to our SLX users. (EXAMPLE: Results and Description fields are left blank, list statements like “New Sub-Process”, or list one of the questions asked during the process.) There is, however, always one (1) entry from the process which is important and shows the activity which was ultimately taken as a result of the process such as emailing a reminder.

 

Question: Is it possible for us to use your filtering solution above to keep these PROC steps from cluttering up the Notes/History? Initially my thoughts are that this filtering would cause us to also loose the one (1) important entry as well. But perhaps we could at lease filter out most of the unnecessary process entries without moving the necessary ones by filtering PROC entries which also have blank Results or Description fields. Is this possible and do you see any issues with this filtering?

 

2. Much of our Tech Support includes extensive email exchange between Tech Support and the Customer. As usual, the last email in the email chain will contain all of the other emails in it’s body. But currently each of the emails in the email chain is maintained in the Notes/History resulting in a very long Notes/History with many entries for users to work through.

 

Question: Is there any way to consolidate these Notes/History email chains into one or two entries? (I can understand that the filtering option may not provide a solution for this issue, but it’s worth asking incase someone has another idea.)

Yes,

I think you could use the same solution. However, in step 11 I would use the conditions that you stated. The only issue I see with this, is remembering that you did it. One day, six months down the road you will be wondering why these notes/history do not show up. Make sure you docuent what and why you  are doing this and keep it in the SaleLogix Library or someplace it can easy be found.

 Have a great day!!

Dale

Thank you, Dale. That is a great point and one I will take heed to.

David

Hi all

As a general point, we have pretty-much outlawed Contact Processes in our company because, although superficially they look OK, once you try to build anything really clever around them you are potentially in for a power of hurt. 

When I first saw Contact Processes during my BP Training/Certification in July 1997, I was pretty impressed by them.  However, we have had lots of situations where we tried to get too clever.  One issue is that steps are pretty-much "atomic" and one cannut easily use the runtime outcome of one to shape the results in another.  For example, one custeorm wanted to have a Schedule Meeting task that would allow a user to call someone and schedule a meeting.  BUT, depending on the outcome of that they wanted to schdule a pre-meeting preparation task for 3 days prior. 

We always prefer to use TaskCentre now.

Regards

Paul Roussell, Adexio (Brisbane, Australia)

How would we accomplish the same with the Web version of SalesLogix (6.2.6)?  i.e. NOT show History.type 262156 (database change) on accounts, contacts, or opportunities.

 

 

Just modify the grid conditions to not include that type.

Don't forget that you can filter your notes/history tab using various different criteria - If you can train your support/sales users to set the category of the history item before completing it, it becomes much easier and more accurate to filter the account notes/history tab to exclude thos items that may appear as clutter to your average user.

You make an excellent point. The filtering adds lot of assistance to a large Notes/History. (although I believe they could improve on this function greatly!) But I have found that the IF in your statement is a pretty big one for our company. Beside bad habits dying hard, our company is not currently using the Tickets or Opportunities entities. So users are going to the Accounts Notes/History tab for everything. I am working now to develop use for Tickets, then Opportunities. I have also found that the “Complete Activity Information” pop up window had been disabled for all users. Since users were not being prompted for completion of fields like “Category” use of the Categories for filtering was a lost cause from the start.

 

I am trusting that use of Tickets and Opportunities will begin to show users the value in having a complete history for each account. Mike's suggestions have been especially helpful with suggestions in this regard.

 

David

Hi all,

 

One of the options for filtering through the Accounts’ Notes/History tab is User. When moving from one account to another on our system this setting must be reselected each time a different account is viewed. The check box next to the User field remains checked, but the Selection changes back to the user’s name each time. This is also the case for the “Within last” filter option, but not the case with other filtering options such as “Activity Type” or “Date Range From.” Does this sound like normal operation, and is anyone aware of how to get the filter options to remain as selected when viewing from one account to another?

 

Thanks 

I'm not sure if this is the same thing - but what would make most sense to me is if the contact process history entries were recorded the same as database changes, as in the only show up when that filter box is checked.  Doing what you have described above are these entries deleted completely from the history, or just the visible history?  As mentioned above there may be reason to wonder down the road is something happened or not, but for the most part it's just a lot of clutter.