Using Notes vs. History

History and Notes are two quite different things. History is for tracking everything you’ve done with the contacts in your database… emails you’ve sent, calls you’ve made, meetings you’ve had, letters you’ve written, etc. It’s for recording the day-to-day history of your relationships. Notes are more general - useful for tracking impressions of a person or business or recording more long term items of interest.

Notes and Histories need to be separated as uniquely different. An ACT! Note should only be used for commentary regarding the contact. It should not include any information regarding any action that has occured. Consider using notes for commentary such as likes and dislikes, product preferences, personal highlights, etc - generally for those things you want to remember or reference quickly.

On the other hand, History is the audit trail of the things you have done for a contact - a chronological accounting of all things that have been done with or for the contact. It is the point of true “contact management”. A completed call and held meeting history will automatically update fields on the contact screen labeled as Last Reach and Last Meeting. These fields are searchable, sortable and reportable.

A few more differences:

• Unlike Histories, Notes cannot be categorized. There is no Regarding field for a note.
• Second, Notes do not have a classification or status such as Call Completed, Call Left Message, Meeting Held, To-Do Done, etc.
• Third, Notes do not have a field to track duration. How much time did this activity take?
• Fourth, Notes do not update system fields like histories such as “Last Reach” or “Last Meeting” thus making it harder to determine when the last ‘true’ contact or touch was made.

Separating Notes from Histories is smart if the user understand the difference between the two. Instead of simply typing a note the next time a contact calls you, right mouse click and choose “Record History” (anywhere on the contact record), or use the icon on the history tab (see below). Over time you will be glad you did.