Overview and Benefits
This feature automatically creates tasks against leads and customers that have not seen any activity for a set period, defined by you.
Automatically generating tasks against inactive lead and customer records is useful for Sales and Service Users and Managers who wish to efficiently manage their customer base and reduce time spent manually creating tasks; ensuring that no opportunity is missed and no customer is neglected.
This article will explain the feature, as well as how it can be used, installed and configured.
This feature requires add-on access to Functions and Scheduler for your instance of The Layer; if you're interested in making use of automated task generation for inactive accounts, please speak to your Account Manager.
Understanding and Using Automated Task Generation
What counts as an "Activity"?
The following events will be considered as activity:
Record save
Addition of note
Task creation
Opportunity creation
If any of these events have occurred against a customer or lead record within the period you have defined, they will qualify for and trigger automated task creation.
How are tasks created?
A reminder task will be created for any inactive accounts. This can fall into any task work stacks that the assigned user may be monitoring.
The task name and text will be "No sales activity record for this customer".
The task will be assigned to the lead / customer record owner.
If the record owner's account is inactive, then there is the option to assign tasks to another owner, by default. For more information, see the Configuration and Settings section below.
Email notifications
Task assignees will receive an email to notify them of their inactive leads and customers.
This email contains a link to each record.
Users will receive a single email that groups all relevant records together, each time the function is run.
Configuration and Settings
Installation
The feature can be installed by administrators from Settings - Functions, by clicking on ScriptStore in the top-right of the screen.
Click on Automated Task Generation for Inactive Accounts then follow the on-screen instructions.
You'll be asked to set the Inactive Days - this determines the length of time a record must be inactive before the task and notification will be triggered.
Installation will take only a moment. After it's complete, you'll be taken to a view of the scripts that have been installed.
Next, click on the Automated Task Generation script to review some more settings:
Token: select a token to be used. This provides the script with user credentials to perform its tasks in the database.
Customer status: Choose which customer records are eligible, based on their status. If you choose none, no customer records will be checked.
Lead status: Choose which lead records are eligible, based on their status. If you choose none, no lead records will be checked.
User: This lets you set a default owner for tasks in the event that the lead or customer owner account is inactive.
Amending Settings
Users with Settings access can amend some settings after initial installation.
To access the functions, go to Settings - Functions. The relevant functions will be under the Automatic Task Generation for Inactive Accounts tab by default.
Click on the Automated Task Generation entry and amend any details as required, as shown in the Configuration section above.
Once you have installed and configured your function, the function should then be linked to a scheduler via Settings - Scheduler.
Scheduling your function
Generally, the function will be hooked up to a scheduler. This allows the function to be automatically run at a certain interval.
Administrators can amend the schedule by going to Settings - Scheduler. Locate the scheduler that corresponds to the Automated Task Generation function. Click on it to view its settings.
The schedule can be changed here. We recommend that the function schedule is set to run before working hours begin.
For further information on scheduling functions, see this article.
If you need any support or have any questions, please reach out to your Account Manager who will be happy to help.