Looking at the most popular suggestions and ideas in our Ideas Portal, the number one feature request is for improved Calendar functionality, number two is for more activity reporting, and number three is for an improved Task system...so we're embarking on a big project to tackle all three - not to mention a whole load of other small requests related to similar topics!
As I say, this is a big project that we're planning to roll out in stages. We're also going to be undertaking lots of user-testing with preview and early adopter user groups at each stage so not everything is cast in stone yet. However, this article is intended to give you an overview of our plans, phases and ambition. Hopefully that will help all users to give us relevant feedback on the early phases while understanding what's yet to come.
Note: This is an iterative process and features and user interface illustrations below are subject to change. This article is for information and guidance, and nothing should be considered an immutable commitment or a fixed timescale.
So, let's get started...
Updated Activity Stream
The Activity stream is a major source of information, and we've already recently added more and more content, including automated activity and notes for Sales Orders, status changes and more. Unsurprisingly, this will be one of the key areas where you'll be able to see and interact the new Tasks and Events too.
So, to make all this data a little more organised and faster for users to scan - and to get ready for the new Tasks and Events - we're making some changes here first:
We're adding month sections so that you can quickly scan through the timeline without having to read the dates on each individual entry.
Those month sections will be collapsible too so that you can zoom in on the time period you're looking for.
We're improving the pinning of notes in a clearer section at the top (also collapsible).
You'll also see a small change to the way you highlight key notes and activities. The terminology is changing from "important" to "flagged" notes to be more consistent with other products like Outlook that use "flagged" to highlight certain notes and activities.
We're also simplifying the UI by removing the configuration options for notes and activities. In analysing user behaviour and the settings they choose, it's clear that over 95% of users want to see the newest activity at the top, and that users always want to see consolidated activity, making this option an unnecessary confusion.
Apart from that, you won't notice too many more changes here - but the most important updates are being worked on behind the scenes to support the introduction of the new Tasks and Events.
New Tasks
Note: To avoid confusion in this article, we'll be generally referring to the existing features as "Tasks (Classic)" or "Classic Tasks" and the new system as "Tasks (Preview)" or just "new Tasks".
Via the Ideas Portal and through other forms of feedback, we've heard users loud and clear asking for more capable, flexible and powerful task management. Clearly, the biggest limitation right now is only being able to set one Task for one user against an Opportunity, Problem etc. But there are other limitations too - like not being able to report on historic or completed Tasks.
So, the new Tasks (Preview) is being built from the ground up to entirely replace Classic Tasks.
Among other features, it'll include:
Unlimited Tasks per Contact, Opportunity, Problem or Enquiry, potentially assigned to different users on different dates.
You'll even be able to create some Tasks that aren't associated with any particular customer or project, allowing even more flexibility to set reminders for yourself or a colleague to do anything CRM-related.
Tasks can be completed, removing them from your to-do list but retaining the history for reporting purposes.
The Activity timeline will show when Tasks were created and assigned (just as with Classic Tasks) but will also show an additional entry to tell you when Tasks were completed and by which user.
There's also a specific field for Task description and a separate field for Task outcome - again making it easier to produce useful Report that tells you "what happened" rather than simply knowing that a Task was completed.
We're also updating the Tasks list (more on this below) and even adding new Task notifications in a later phase (again, read more below).
Task List
Clearly, your to daily Task list or to-do list is one of the most common ways to interact with Tasks. This is being updated to something like this:
Key features will include:
Expandable/Collapsible sections for today, upcoming and overdue Tasks
Ability to also see and revisit Tasks that have been completed today in the "Completed Today" section
All other Tasks, including older completed Tasks can also be found via a Report through clicking "Show more"
Tasks can be opened for more detail and editing through clicking on each Task, but importantly, Tasks can also be quickly "checked off" and closed from this Task panel (or indeed from the Activity timeline in a given Opportunity, Problem etc. screen).
Calendar & Events
Perhaps the biggest change, both from a feature and technical perspective, will be the introduction of an all-new calendar view that syncs with Outlook and later with Google Workspace.
Tasks & Events in the Activity Timeline
As mentioned earlier, the Activity Timeline was being updated in part to support the new Tasks and Events features, and here you can see an example of what that might look like:
New in-App Notifications
Initially we'll continue support notification by system-generated emails to notify users of upcoming and overdue Tasks, and Tasks they've been assigned by other users. But improved reminders of events is also a highly voted request in the Ideas Portal, so towards the end of this project we'll also be introducing a new in-app notification system to support this and other types of in-app notifications that users will be able to subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) as required.
This will look something like this:
Activity Reporting
Last but not least, the new Tasks system will immediately bring improved reporting as it will be much easier to report on historic, closed Tasks and their outcomes as well as future and overdue outstanding Tasks. But, once this is up and running, we'll also be looking at building more activity reporting directly into the user-pages in the CRM to help managers see what's being going on and better support people in their teams.
More?
Yes! We've got plenty more ideas and we're still working with our UX designers, developers and user groups to round off the above features and make sure we've fulfilled as many user requests as we can - without unnecessarily complicating the interface - a fine balance but we'll be trying our best!
Ultimately there aren't enough designer or developer-days in a decade to complete everything we'd like to do, but hopefully you can see from the detail above that this is a major project that we're taking very seriously.
If you have other ideas or want to get involved and vote on your favourite suggestions, please head over to the CRM Ideas Portal.