Think outside the box with CiviCRM: Innovative idea #11

Empower your internal teams with activities

You've been working with CiviCRM for a while and have come to realize what an invaluable tool it has become to manage your membership and donor base. You know the ins and outs of price sets for your next event configuration, you are already using scheduled reminders to send welcome message to new members, you are using activities to track the engagement of your more enthusiastic constituents, but you might still be struggling with communication and task assignment with your team of volunteers spread over multiple cities, and you've been wondering how to streamline internal assignments.

We have talked before about using Activities in various contexts, but did you know that Activities also offer an efficient method of delegation, communication and tracking with multiple contacts¹? There are countless scenarios that can be addressed using your different activity types and statuses, all of which can be configured in a matter of minutes. Consider the possibilities²:

• Organize different action items using corresponding activity types³
• Designate who added the activity, assign one or more contacts to be responsible for completing it, and indicate one or more contacts who are the target of the activity
• Assign a status (e.g. "Scheduled") and use the activity date as a due date
• Assignees can update activities with any relevant information through the use of core and custom data fields, upload documents, and manage workflow by updating the activity status³ (e.g. from "Scheduled" to "In Progress" or "Completed") 
• Track assignments, progress and follow-up on activities by:
  • Creating personalized status reports for display on each user's CiviCRM dashboard
  • Configuring activity reports that can be sent automatically via email
  • Using scheduled reminders to follow-up with the different stakeholders based on activity type, status, due date and role

The beauty of it all is that no customization is required.

Want to know more about how CiviCRM can help your organization further? Contact your account manager at Cividesk and we'll be happy to help.

<sub>1. Anyone with the necessary permissions can access activities - Cividesk clients can request help by opening a support with an email to support@cividesk.com.
2. To ensure consistency, you'll want to plan and document the way in which your organization will use Activities to be shared with all interested parties.
3. CiviCRM ships with commonly used Activity Types and Statuses - click HERE for instruction on how to create your own Activity Types, click HERE for instruction on how to create your own Activity Statuses.</sub>