Activities

An activity is a record of communication with a client. This includes schedule items, tasks, documents, emails, and call records. Activities are also known as interactions. Activities can be single events, such as a schedule item reminding you to call a client, or they can be recurring events, such as a weekly status meeting.

Viewing activities on the Activities card

You can view and access an entity's activities by selecting the entity in the data table on the Contacts workspace, selecting the Summary tab on the detail page, and viewing the Activities card. This card displays activities related to the selected entity, including activities grouped by:

• Today
• This Week
• Last Week
• Older

You can use the Activities card to:

• Add a new activity by clicking the Add button 

  

  and select the type of activity you want to add.
• Roll up all of the activities for a company on the Activities card. For more information, see Rolling up activities in the Activities tab.
• Expand an activity to reveal more information and take action directly from the card:
  • Mark an activity as complete
  • Delete an activity
  • Edit an activity
  • Add a call record or send an email from the More Actions menu

    

To open the Activities tab for an entity on the Contacts workspace, where you can search and filter your activities in a data table, click the View All button on the Activities card.

Viewing activities in the Activities tab and data table

The Activities tab for a selected entity displays a data table that shows the related activity records. In the Activities tab, you can search for and filter activity records, add new activities, and manage existing activity records. NexJ provides the following predefined filters that enable you to find records quickly that match the filter criteria:

• All Items
• Schedule Items
• Tasks
• Documents
• Email

For more information about searching for and filtering records, see Searching and filtering in NexJ CRM.

To preview an activity record without opening the Edit dialog for the activity, click the Preview button

When viewing a list of activities in a data table, you can see the full notes associated with each activity. The note is displayed as a new row, below the row with all other information about the activity. To include the notes rows in the data table, use the Select columns command in the More Actions menu to select the Note field.

Viewing activities in other workspaces

You can also see activities in other locations in NexJ CRM. You can see:

• Activities associated with a specific opportunity in the Activities tab on the Opportunities workspace.
• Activities associated with a specific service request in the Activities tab on the Service Requests workspace.
• Activities associated with a specific account plan in the Activities tab on the Account Plan details page, on the Contacts workspace.

These tabs function similarly to the Activities tab on the Contacts workspace.

Adding activities 

From the Activities card or the Activities tab, you can add an activity to an entity or account plan's record by clicking the Add button

When adding an activity, you should be aware that the default values for the For and Assign To fields are the selected entity and you, respectively. The Assign To field is used to assign the activity to a NexJ CRM user or multiple users, and the For field is used to associate the activity with any other related entities.

You can click the Select button

for the For field and select from a list of entities. If the target entity does not exist, you can click the Add a new item button 

in the Select entities dialog, enter the entity information in the New Contact dialog, and save your changes to add the required entity.

If you remove the current entity from the For field, the activity is created but will not display in that entity's Calendar tab.

For date fields without a time component, such as the Due Date field for a task or the Contact Date for a call record, you can specify either a specific date (such as May 23, 2023) or a date relative to the current date (such as a date 10 days in the past or a date 2 days in the future). Use the Fixed tab for entering specific dates. If you want to enter a relative date, select the Day tab.

On the Day tab, use the slider to specify the number of days to use in calculating the target date, and whether it should be in the past or in the future.

Alternately, you can type the relative date formula in the date field, in the interval+number or interval-number format. For example:

• enter day+5 to indicate a date 5 days in the future
• enter day-5 to indicate a date 5 days ago

The relative date set for an activity is fixed once the activity is created. For example, if the current date is May 23, 2023 and you create a task with the Due Date value of day+5, then the due date will be saved as May 28, 2023. If you open the task tomorrow, the due date will still be May 28, 2023.

For more information about adding specific types of activities, see:

• Adding schedule items
• Adding tasks
• Adding a document to an entity's record
• Creating call records associated with other activities

• Creating standalone call records

• Adding activity plans

Specifying view and edit security for activities

You can apply view and edit security to any activity you add.

To restrict viewing and editing of an activity to a group of users or to yourself when adding a new activity, navigate to the Security tab in the New dialog, and select the appropriate view and edit security options.

You cannot modify view security and edit security settings for an activity after it has been created. If you want to restrict view and edit access to a document, you must set it when you add the activity.

The Security tab is not available when the Hierarchical Access Model is enabled.

For more information about applying security, see Security settings for objects in NexJ CRM.

Adding activity plans

An activity plan is a predefined sequence of activities that can be created for a client, rather than creating each of the activities individually. Add an activity plan to create a set of activities for the entity.

Two types of activity plans are available. Choose the one that reflects how you want the activity plan steps to relate to one another:

• An activity plan consists on a number of ordered steps, where each step's creation depends on the creation or completion of the previous step. After you add an activity plan to the contact, the first activity is created relative to the start of the activity plan. Subsequent activities are created relative to the creation or completion of the previous step, as defined in the activity plan template.
• A targeted activity plan consists of one target activity step and multiple other steps, which are all created relative to the target activity, not to each other. After you add an activity plan to the contact, the target activity is created either on a specified date or relative to the activity plan start or end date. Other activities are created relative to the start or end date of the target activity. If a step's create date is in the past based on the definition in the target activity plan template, the activity associated with the step is created immediately.

Before you can add activity plans to entities, activity plan templates must be available. For more information about activity plan templates, including activity plan steps, relationships, and attachments, see Activity plan templates.

For example, to assign a financial review activity plan to an entity, you must already have a financial review activity plan template with defined steps. When you create and assign the financial review activity plan, the defined steps from the template are applied to the assigned entity. While you are creating the activity plan for the entity, you can also modify certain template default settings. For example, you can change the start date or due date.

After you add an activity plan for a contact, the activities included in its steps are created as defined in the template.

ActivitiesAdd

When adding a new activity plan, the New Activity Plan dialog includes the following fields:

Tab	Field or checkbox	Description	Required field
Detail	Description	The description reflects the description specified the activity plan template was created.	Yes
	For	Entities the activity plan is for. You can specify one or more entities in the For field. As you type the name of the entity you want to add to the activity plan in the For field, a list of corresponding entities appears below the field. Select the desired entity when you see their name appear in the list below the For field.	Yes
	Assign To	Users responsible for completing the activity plan. You can specify one or more users in the Assign To field.	No
	Start	Today's date is specified by default.	No
	Due	This field is left blank by default.	No
	Reminder	This field is left blank by default.	No
	Priority	The importance of the activity plan. Populates with category B by default.	Yes
	Status	The current progress of the activity plan. For example, Cancelled, Completed, On Hold, Outstanding, or Tentative. Supported values for this field were specified when the template for this activity plan was created.	Yes
	Notes	The notes reflect the value specified when the activity plan template was created.	No
	Add Attachment	Click the Add button to select a file from your computer. NexJ CRM supports the following file formats: Microsoft Word (all formats provided by Word except XPS), Excel file formats (all formats provided by Excel except SLK and DIF and those listed below as not supported), BMP, CSV, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, and TXT. The following file formats are also not supported: BAS, BIN, COM, CMD, CRT, CSH, DLL, EXE, HEIC, HLP, HTA, HTM, HTML, INS, ISP, JS, MDB, MHT, MHTML, NWS, SCT, SH, STM, VPS, WSC, XHT, and XHTML. The maximum file size that is supported is 7839744 bytes (7.47 MB).	No
Steps	Not applicable.	This tab has two sections. Future Steps Activity plan steps inherited from the template and which haven't yet been created. They cannot be modified here, but they can be modified after the specific step is created for the entity. Assigned Steps There are two kinds of activity steps included in the Assigned Steps section. Activity plan steps inherited from the template and which have already been created for this contact. You can edit or delete these assigned steps. In addition, you can add new schedule items, tasks, or documents as activity plan steps to the activity plan. To add an assigned step, click the Add button  and select the activity type. These steps apply only to this entity and do not affect the activity plan template. The new activity plan steps are created immediately. You cannot associate the creation of new steps with the creation or completion of other activity plan steps.	Not applicable
Related	Not applicable	Click the Add button to add follow-up activities such as additional schedule items, tasks, or documents.	Not applicable

Modifying activity plans

You can modify activity plan details after you have created plans and assigned them to entities to accommodate the changing needs of individual entities.

If you modify the start date of a regular activity plan that has already begun, existing steps in the plan will not be updated. If you want to modify the dates in existing steps, you must update the steps individually. Edit the Start date of each step that needs to be updated from the Steps tab in the Edit Activity Plan dialog.

If you modify the start or end date of the target activity in a target activity plan, the start and due dates for any other steps are updated accordingly, as long as the dependent step has not been created or, if created, has not been completed or cancelled. If you have already changed the start or end dates for any subsequent activities, the dates are reset relative to the new target activity start or end dates, and any changes made previously are disregarded.

If you remove the target activity's start or end time, the start and end times for all dependent steps are removed as well, as long as the dependent step has not been created or, if created, has not been completed or cancelled.

When modifying steps, you can:

• Add steps for an assigned activity plan.

  

  Activity plan steps can be added to an existing activity plan, from the Assigned Steps section of the Steps tab. When adding activity plan steps to an existing activity plan, the new activity plan steps are created immediately. You cannot associate the creation of new steps with the creation or completion of other activity plan steps.

• Delete activity plan steps to remove an activity assigned to a contact.

  

  While creating an activity plan, you cannot delete any steps inherited from the template that have not yet been created. These steps populate the Future Steps section. You can only delete template steps once they are created. These steps populate the Assigned Steps section. Any steps that have been added to the activity plan apart from the template also populate the Assigned Steps section and can be deleted.

  After you delete a step, any future steps with creating dates set to the creation or completion of the step you just deleted will not be created.

• Use the Recurrence tab to make a step a recurring series.

  

  You can only add recurrence to tasks and schedule items when you are creating the activity plan for a client. You cannot specify recurrence when you are creating the activity plan template.

You can also add, delete, and replace activity plan attachments and activity plan step attachments.

Adding a document to an entity's record

To add a new document to an entity's record, from the Activities card or the Activities tab, click the Add button

When adding a new document, the New Document dialog includes the following fields:

Tab	Field or checkbox	Description	Required field
Detail	Add Attachment	Click the Add button to select a file from your computer. NexJ CRM supports the following file formats: Microsoft Word (all formats provided by Word except XPS), Excel file formats (all formats provided by Excel except SLK and DIF and those listed below as not supported), BMP, CSV, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, and TXT. The following file formats are also not supported: BAS, BIN, COM, CMD, CRT, CSH, DLL, EXE, HEIC, HLP, HTA, HTM, HTML, INS, ISP, JS, MDB, MHT, MHTML, NWS, SCT, SH, STM, VPS, WSC, XHT, and XHTML. The maximum file size that is supported is 7839744 bytes (7.47 MB).	No
	For	The list of entities assigned to the document. As you type the name of the entity you want to add to the document in the For field, a list of corresponding entities appears below the field. Select the desired entity when you see their name appear in the list below the For field. You can also click the Select button and select from a list of entities. If the target entity does not exist, you can click the Add a new item button  in the Select entities dialog, enter the entity information in the New Contact dialog, and save your changes to add the required entity.	No
	Priority	The importance of the document. Populates with category B by default.	Yes
	Restrict access to only the owner	When the Hierarchical Access Model is enabled, the Restrict access to only the owner checkbox is available in the Detail tab. To make the document private to the owner, select Restrict access to only the owner. When the document is private, users assigned in the For field will not be able to access the document.	No
	Status	The current progress of the document. For example, Cancelled, Completed, On Hold, Outstanding, or Tentative.	Yes
	Type	The document type you have selected. You can choose to select a different document type.	Yes
Related	Not applicable	You can add multiple follow-up activities and assign them to yourself, another user, or to a selected coverage role. To add a follow-up, select a template from the Add menu and fill in the required information.	Not applicable

For information on adding documents using the Document Manager, see Managing documents.

Adding advisory and hold notes

With NexJ Process Management enabled, you have access to ready-to-use advisory and hold notes. You can add advisory and hold notes to entity records by clicking the Add button

Advisory and h old notes are regulatory notes that are used to document the investment advice you provide to clients. These are required to confirm suitability of recommendations made to a client.

Advisory notes can be used to record the offering of advice such as broad economic and market outlooks, or information focusing on a particular sector of the stock, bond, or commodity markets, to a client. You will need to select who the advisory note is for, as well as a category. Other fields in the form are optional.

Use hold notes to record advising a client to neither buy nor sell a security, on the belief that it will perform at the same level as comparable companies. You will need to select who the hold note is for. Other fields in the form are optional.

When you have completed a form to your satisfaction, click Submit. Once submitted, you can find the note in the contact's activities data table where you can edit the note, mark it as complete, or select from other options such as Add Call Record, Email, or Delete.

Sending emails related to activities

Send an email to discuss the related activity with the people involved. The system addresses the email to everyone from the related activity's For and Assign To fields. For example, to discuss an upcoming meeting with its attendees, send an email based on the meeting's schedule item.

To send an email related to an activity, navigate to the Activities card for the selected entity, or select the activity record in the Activities tab, click the More Actions button

Fields in the dialog populate with information from the activity.

Fields and checkboxes	Description	Required field
Attachments	Documents included with the email. Populates with the attachments from the activity. You cannot manually add or remove attachments from the email.	No
Body	The body text of the email. You can use the toolbar at the top of the field to format the text as rich text with styles such as bolding, italics, bullet points, and hyperlinks. You can copy and paste formatted text into the field. You can also click the Image button in the toolbar and upload images from your computer to use in email signatures. The images cannot exceed 2MB in size, and must be in JPG, JPEG, or PNG format. To specify additional image settings, navigate to the Advanced tab. For example, you can specify the size of an image and its alignment.	Yes
CC	Recipients copied on the email. Populates with the default email address of all users in the activity's Assign To field. To add a copied recipient, enter the contact's email address in the field, separated by a semi-colon.	No
Include Email Signature	Add your email signature. Your administrator will need to have enabled the Email Signature feature before you can add a signature.	No
Mark as Complete	To set the activity's status to Completed when the email sends, select Mark as Complete.	No
Priority	The priority of the email record. Populates with category B by default.	Yes
Subject	The subject line of the email. Populates with the activity's description.	No
To	The recipient of the email. Populates with the default email address of all entities in the activity's For field. To add a recipient, enter the entity's email address in the field, separated by a semi-colon.	Yes

To modify your email signature, click Manage Email Signature.

You can create an email signature from the User Preferences dialog.

To preview the email before sending it to email recipients, click Send a Draft Email to send the email to your email address.

Your administrator will need to have enabled the Draft Email feature before you can send draft emails.

If there are merge fields in the email body and attachments, they are personalized using the information from one of the email recipients. After you click Send a Draft Email, a message displays stating that you have sent an email to your email address. Click OK to continue.

To send the email, click Send Email. The email is sent to the email addresses in the To and CC fields. The activity's attachments are included in the email.

Rolling up activities in the Activities tab

You can roll up activities across an entity, allowing you to see all of the activities for all contacts for a specific entity in one place. This consolidates the activities information so you can avoid viewing the activities for each contact separately.

To roll up activities for a selected entity in the Activities tab, click the Rollup Options button

This rollup does not include the relationships defined by contact-type custom fields.

Working with call records

A call record is an internal record documenting an interaction with a contact. It can summarize a face-to-face conversation, a telephone call, or a meeting.

Several call record templates have been included by default in NexJ CRM. An administrator with appropriate permissions can create new call record templates or modify existing templates.

For example, a scheduled meeting might have some information associated with it, such as invitees, meeting time, and the agenda. You can use a call record to keep a summary of the meeting notes after the meeting, such as which invitees attended the meeting, which agenda items were actually discussed, and any outcomes. You can also create a call record without scheduling a meeting beforehand, for example to keep notes for a spontaneous conversation.

A call record is always associated with an entity. In addition, you can relate it to another activity, such as a schedule item, a task, or a document.

You can see call records associated with a specific:

• Entity in the Activities tab for a selected entity
• Task on the Tasks workspace
• Opportunity in the Activities tab for a selected opportunity
• Service request in the Activities tab for a selected service request

In the Activities tab, you can select only the Call Records filter as a favorite to display only the call records and no other activities in the data table. For more information about searching for and filtering records, see Searching and filtering in NexJ CRM.

Creating call records associated with other activities

You can associate a call record with another activity. For example, you can add a call record to a meeting, to record the outcome of the meeting and the people involved in the discussion.

• To create a call record associated with another activity, find and select the activity you want to associate with the call record, and select Add Call Record.
• To create call records associated with an entity, opportunity, or service request, select their Activities tab, click the  More Actions button

  

  , select Add Call Record, and select the required call record template.
• To create a call record for a schedule item, navigate to the Schedule workspace, right-click the schedule item name, select Add Call Record, and select the required call record template.
• For create a call record for a task, navigate to the Tasks workspace, click the More Actions button for the task, select Add Call Record, and select the required call record template.

After you select the template, complete the following Edit dialog tabs as required:

Some required fields, such as Contact Date and Status, are prepopulated based on the activity.

Tab name	Field	Description	Required field
Detail	Add Attachment	Click the Add button to select a file from your computer. NexJ CRM supports the following file formats: Microsoft Word (all formats provided by Word except XPS), Excel file formats (all formats provided by Excel except SLK and DIF and those listed below as not supported), BMP, CSV, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, and TXT. The following file formats are also not supported: BAS, BIN, COM, CMD, CRT, CSH, DLL, EXE, HEIC, HLP, HTA, HTM, HTML, INS, ISP, JS, MDB, MHT, MHTML, NWS, SCT, SH, STM, VPS, WSC, XHT, and XHTML. The maximum file size that is supported is 7839744 bytes (7.47 MB).	No
	Assign To	Displays your name. You can choose to assign another user to the call record by adding and selecting them.
	For	The list of entities assigned to the call record. As you type the name of the entity you want to add to the call record in the For field, a list of corresponding entities appears below the field. Select the desired entity when you see their name appear in the list below the For field. You can also click the Select button and select from a list of entities. If the target entity does not exist, you can click the Add a new item button  in the Select entities dialog, enter the entity information in the New Contact dialog, and save your changes to add the required entity.	Yes
	Priority	The importance of the call record. Populates with category B by default.	Yes
	Status	The current progress of the call record. For example, Completed or Outstanding.	Yes
	Template	The template you have selected. You can choose to select a new template and click Override to change your original template selection.	Yes
Attendees	Not applicable	Visible if you have been assigned the mda:MeetingInvitationsEnabled privilege. This tab displays the entities and users the item is associated with. You can add or remove entities and users on this tab; these changes are reflected in the For and Assign To fields in the Detail tab.	Not applicable
Related	Not applicable	The call record's related opportunity, products, or service request. Click the Add button to add follow-up activities such as additional schedule items, tasks, or documents.	Not applicable
Security	Private/Public	Specify the view and edit security settings for the call record by selecting Public or Private. For more information about applying security, see Security settings for objects in NexJ CRM. The Security tab is not available when the Hierarchical Access Model is enabled.	Yes

When the call record is created, it appears in the Activities tab for the entity, opportunity, or service request associated with the call record or in the Tasks workspace, when the call record is associated with a task. The activity associated with the call record displays the call record icon

To edit an existing call record, click the Edit button 

Creating standalone call records

You can create a call record and associate it directly with an entity or opportunity without associating it with an activity.

To create a standalone call record:

1. Find and select the required entity, opportunity, or service request on the relevant workspace you want to associate the call record with.
2. Select the Activities tab and click the Add button

   

   .
3. Select Call Record and select the call record template.
4. Complete the New Call Record dialog. For more information about completing the tabs in the New Call Record dialog, see Creating call records associated with other activities.

After the call record has been created, it displays in the Activities tab for the contact or opportunity associated with the call record.

Viewing audit trail for activity record actions

NexJ CRM retains a history of actions that users have performed on records in the system. When you complete an action, such as viewing or modifying an activity record, the action is logged in the record's audit trail. Users with the appropriate privileges can view the history and details of these actions in a record's Audit Trail tab.

As of NexJ CRM 9.7, the audit configuration between activities and their associated contacts and users have been relaxed to minimize the system resources required when processing records having a large number of associations. This change means that deletion of either the activity or the contact is not reflected in the Audit Trail tab for the remaining record. For example, if Call Record 1 for Contact A has been deleted, this change will not appear when viewing the audit details for Contact A. Similarly, if Contact A is deleted, then the change will not appear in the audit details for Call Record 1. The primary delete operation for the target item is audited and stored. It is only the secondary link, created specifically for related items, that will no longer appear.

When modifying an activity, you can filter the data table on the Audit Trail tab to display specific event records.

NexJ provides the following filter chips that you can use to filter the audit trail:

• Action
  Select an operator and an audit action; for example, Read (view a record) or Create (create a new object).
• Date
  Select an operator and a date.
• User
  Select an operator and the required user or users.

To add additional filter chips, click the Filter options button

In the data table, select the action whose details you want to view. Depending on the type of action, additional details might be available. The details for the selected action display in the data table at the bottom of the tab. Each row represents a field that was updated as part of the action. The field's name, old value, and new value are displayed. If a field did not have a value originally, the value in the Old Value column will be blank.

To change which columns display in the data tables, click the Select columns button

Related links

• Adding schedule items - Add schedule items, including meetings, appointments, calls, and so on, on the Schedule workspace.
• Adding tasks - Add tasks, including reminders, follow ups, calls, and so on, on the Tasks workspace.
• Adding and modifying documents - Add documents on the Document Manager workspace so that you and/or other users can access them later.