Manage Your Account: Activity Templates

You can set up Activity Templates within Redtail, allowing you to pre-define many of the default field values as well as any formulaic descriptive text for types of activities that are typically handled in a similar manner. Going forward, you'll be able to select from any Activity Templates you've established whenever you're creating a new activity.

To begin setting up an Activity Template, select Manage Your Account after clicking your Name from the Top Right Menu within Redtail: 

 

Then, click "Activity Templates" in the Manage Templates area: 

 

You'll then see existing Activity Templates in your database (if any): 

 

Click "new" and you'll arrive at the modal where you can begin setting up your Template: 

 

• Name - whatever you enter here will serve as the name of the activity template. Be very descriptive here, as you need to be able to distinguish between your Activity Templates when selecting one during the activity creation process. If you scroll back up to the existing Activity Templates above, you'll see that we've broken a common activity, Client Meeting Follow-up, down into three separate templates, as some of the details will change based upon how that follow-up occurs. 
• Subject - this will serve as the subject of the activity, and will display on your Calendar and in Activity reports. Note: for both the Subject box here as well as the Description area below you should avoid including sensitive information in these fields, as the Subject and Description may be included in Activity Email Notifications. We recommend Linked Notes for that type of information. You can learn more about Activity Descriptions vs Linked Notes here.
• All Day box - checking this off will set this template to create activities as All Day, rather than timed, events.
• Type - choose from one of your CRM's system or custom Activity Types.
• Category - choose from one of your CRM's system or custom Activities and Notes Categories. Note: there is a "filter" option above your Templates that will allow you to filter which Activity Templates you are viewing by Category, should you desire.
• Description - You can enter as little or as much as you like here. We recommend entering formulaic text for the type of activity you are creating that will not vary much from instance to instance of this particular sort of activity, leaving room to add the details that will vary.
• Attendees - Select the database user(s) that should be linked by default to activities using this template.
• Importance and Priority - select default importance and priority for activities using this template.

Note: for all of the fields above (other than the Name), you can edit these on-the-fly when actually using a Template to create an activity.

Let's go back to your Activity Templates screen before looking at how you would use these to create an Activity:

As you can see above, if you click the Actions icon for an Activity Template on this page, you can Edit or Delete the template. If you choose the Edit option, you'll see the same modal that you saw above when adding a new one - of course, it will already be completed. You'll just need to make any necessary changes and save the template to complete those edits.

Now, let's take a look at using an Activity Template to create a new Activity. In this instance, let's say we want to follow-up with client Elizabeth Adams via phone about some outstanding items from a recent meeting. After selecting to add a new activity, you'll see the below:

As indicated above, the very first option in your Create Activity modal is the selection of an Activity Template. If you click inside that box, you'll see all available templates within your database:

If we were to select "Client Meeting Follow-up: Phone Call" here, we might see something like the below:

What you'll find is that all fields that you established a value for in your template will now be updated here to reflect those values. Also, note the text at the top alerting you that default information has been entered for the activity's description. If you want to go ahead and take a look at that, or make any additional edits to it, click "create & edit" here, rather than simply clicking "create activity". You'd then see the new activity's Details page:

The Description area is highlighted in yellow above, and you can see the default text that was entered as part of the Activity Template. You can make edits to this prior to, during, or after the period when you're actually carrying out the Activity. 

Setting up and using these Activity Templates will allow you to save your time for focusing on the elements of Activities that differ (their substance) rather than the elements that remain largely the same.