Opening all stages of a custom opportunity process at once

[cornishben]

Hi,

We have a customer flow of around 20 steps and we want to keep track of how far each customer has progressed through this process. I have created an custom opportunity process flow with these 20 stages. When we have a new contact I'd like to open all of these 20 opportunity stages for the contact (with status - open), we can then close these off as the process runs through, ensuring no stages are forgotten! Is there an way to do this? (Currently I'm just opening 20 stages manually for each customer but this is both time-consuming and prone to error). Many thanks

 

[GLComputing]

There is no way to do this. The way ACT! was designed, it should be the same opportunity where you change the stage as you progress.

It sounds like you're looking more for an Activity Series (have a look for that in Help)

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[cornishben]

many thanks for the reply. Just been reading the help and agreed an Activity Series sounds more what we require. However, I like the open/closed field in the opportunities, is it possible to do this with Activities? I've created a trial activity series and some custom activity types, but in the activity tab at the bottom it doesn't seem to give the type names so you can't tell what each activity listed is, without entering each one? Plus when you clear them they are crossed out, whereas I'd like them to be listed as 'complete' or closed or cleared, but with any detailed notes given when it was closed included in one of the columns displayed in the activity tab.

So in summary, ideally I'd like ACT to automatically open an activity series for each new contact when it is created. This series would be a pre-defined list of 'to-do's, which would all be open. As each is completed then it would be 'closed' and a note added detailing this. Hence you could easily see at a glance which contacts still had 'open' activities left to complete and you could hopefully in a dashboard view see all contacts and what stage they're at in the standard activity series?
Any advice on implementing the above much appreciated as I can't work out how to do this with activities?

 

[GLComputing]

You could create a Custom Activity type (Schedule | Manage | Activity Types) and select the different results to display when closed. The use these in the Series.

Play with it in a demo or backup - once created, Custom activities can be changed, but not deleted.

In Tools | Preferences | Calendar & Scheduling | Scheduling Preferences - you can make closed activities grey instead of Strikeout

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[cornishben]

Many thanks for the help, just one more small question I'm afraid. I've set up an Activity series of custom activities which I think should work well. I numbered the activities so that I can display them in the correct order under the activities tab/task list. However it displays (1,10,11...19,2,20,21...29). Do you know a way to sort them in numerical order? I've currently done this by naming them 1.1,1.2,1.3...1.9,2.0,2.1... etc.. but it's not ideal and kind of confusing..

 

[GLComputing]

Why not do 01,02,03,04...

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[cornishben]

I guess even with 01,02,03 etc it would display:

01,011,012,013,014,015,016,017,018,019,02,021,022.. etc

hence again not in order?

 

[GLComputing]

01,02,03,04,...08,09,10,11

Why were you adding to those already in double figures?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[cornishben]

sorry - just being thick! realise what you mean now. Shall change my series accordingly