When working in CRM software such as Salesforce.com, it is imperative for sales managers to maintain the highest standards for data quality among their sales reps. This is perhaps most important when attempting to do activity tracking, which is why you need to set up task type in Salesforce, and not just subject lines.
What’s the problem?
The default Salesforce configuration for Tasks is not ideal for maintaining high standards of data quality. Many Salesforce users stick with this default setup and use the Subject line to keep track of what types of activities are occurring. Managers will typically track activities by matching against a specific word, like in this example here:
But what if the rep inadvertently mistyped “Coll” instead of “Call”? The lookup for activities tagged with the word “Call” will miss this record, which should have been included, but for an accidental typo. Or, what if a rep puts enters the subject “Orders returned, massive recall!”? Then, the sales manager who sees that record might think more calls are being logged than actually occurred.
Setting up Task Types can help avoid this problem. Read on to learn how to easily set this up.
Step-by-step to setting up Task Types in Salesforce
Step 1: Setup your Task Types
Navigate to your Salesforce setup and find the “Task Fields” section:
Look for the Type field – a standard field in Salesforce – at the bottom. Click the word “Type” to look at your current picklist choices for this field. You can edit the existing fields or add new, more appropriate ones that fit your business. For example, if your reps don’t typically work with emails, then you can leave this out. Select the one that will be your default selection.
*Enterprise users: There is one more step to take here, involving setting the field permissions appropriately. This gives you control over who sees what between your various types of accounts. Click “Field Permissions” and select which account types should be able to see this field, or contact us for help!
Step 2: Make it visible
Once you’ve selected the appropriate Task Types that you want your sales team to select from, you have to make these options visible to the team. Navigate to the Task Page Layout section, which determines which fields are available each time your team logs a new Task.
“Type” should be at the top of the page and not part of the current Task layout. Add it there by dragging the “Type” box from the top of the page to where you want it displayed on the Task layout.
Step 3: Make it mandatory!
Finally, sales reps might not always be as diligent as you would like in entering the required information in Salesforce. To ensure that they start logging Task Types, simply make it a required field when logging new Tasks.
Hover over the “Type” field that you’ve just dragged into the layout and click on the wrench that appears next to it. This will let you select that the field is a required one to fill in before Salesforce will let you save.
Enabling Task Types in Salesforce will help you go a long way toward improving your sales team’s overall data quality. Follow our steps to set this up and let us know in the comments section below how this new workflow is working out for you!
