Automate Scheduling with Activity Series

An activity series allows you to schedule a pre-defined series of activities with one or more contacts, as well as select an "anchor" date for all activities in the series. Then, by scheduling the anchor event, *all* other events (activities) are automatically scheduled.

Before jumping in to using the function, it is helpful to ensure all the activities related to you, and your business, are defined. The Activity Series only uses the activities currently in the database (i.e. call, meeting, to-do), so if you have something unique to your business process (i.e. Conference Setup, Follow-Up email, Send Quote, etc), define those first.

So, for starters, go to:
Schedule>Manage>Activity Types

The current set of activities will show up, click Add... to customize to your business processes. You can add what you want, but often it's helpful to prefix the activity with the business process as well. E.g. if you have a follow-up email that goes out, and the email is different depending on where the contact came from, you could have a "Conf - eMail", and a "Cold call - eMail" activity. This way, you can define Activity Series for all business processes, not just a generic "eMail" task.

Now, after defining a set of activities, go to:
Schedule>Manage>Activity Series Templates

Follow the series wizard, adding activities as needed. Note that you can also schedule any one, or more, of the activities "for" any other person in your organization (this is the bottom 1/3 of the Activity Information window). A call could be scheduled for you, a letter for the secretary to send, and so on. When you are finished, that series is now available to be scheduled.

Go to: Schedule>Activity Series, chose the series (template) you would like to schedule, the anchor date, and if desired, click on any of the activities, and change the "Scheduled With" (middle of the window). [Or, highlight all of the lines, and change them all at once.] Basically, when scheduling an Activity Series, all activities in that series default to "Schedule With" the contact you are currently viewing. Being able to change the "Schedule With" allows you to choose another contact - e.g. the email task might go to the person you met at the conference (Bob @ XYZ, Inc.), the media packet mailing might go to the president (Frank @ XYZ, Inc.), and so on.

Hope this helps. Again, if you find yourself repeating the same task over and over, or you think "ACT! should do this automatically", you are probably correct. ACT! has many built-in capabilities - let ACT! make life easier.