Activity Manager allows you to schedule and manage your daily activities, including your phone calls, emails, faxes and letters.  Add an activity and send to your Outlook Calendar or create as an Outlook Task with a single click.  As a manager, you are able to assign activities to your employees and monitor their progress.  Activities can also be associated with your Customers/Vendors/Orders, allowing your staff to create a tickler file for customer relations, order and vendor purchase management.

Getting Active

The Activity Manager can be accessed from the Main Graphics Menu. Click on the icon at the bottom of the Graphics Menu that looks like this:

When a user logs into ProfitMaker, the Activity Manager can be set to "Display on startup if there are current/past due activities".  This capability can be turned on/off based on the user in the Activity Manager by checking/unchecking the selection located at the bottom of the Activity Manager window.

Open and Ready for Work

When opened, the manager will filter and display the assigned activities for the user based on the "logged in" initials.  The filter parameters found above the activity list can be changed to accommodate a user's requirements for viewing their activities.

Add and Edit

An activity can be added/edited by using one of the following methods to open the Add/Edit Activity window:

1. Click the Add/Edit button.
2. Double click in a blank area of the Activity List to add new or double click on an activity to edit.
3. Right click in the Activity List area and select Add/Edit from the pop-up menu.

The following Activity window will display:

Enter the activity information and select the Save button to save the activity.

Activity Fields

1. Synopsis - Required field.  A short description for the activity.
2. Status - Defaults as Not Started.  Changing the status will automatically change the progress percent.  Options are: Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Waiting, Deferred, or Cancelled.
3. Type - Required Field. Options are: Quote, Phone, Email, Fax, Letter, or Other.
4. Order # - If the activity is associated with an order, enter the order # or select the order from the lookup.  The customer # from the order will automatically default into the customer # field which will then become disabled.
5. Customer # - If the activity is associated with a customer, enter the customer # from the customer master or select the customer from the lookup.
6. Vendor # - If the activity is associated with a vendor, enter the vendor # from the vendor master or select the vendor from the lookup.  The program will validate that the vendor # is valid as a vendor on the order (if order # has been entered).
7. Assigned to - If the activity is to be completed by another operator, enter the operator's initials or select the operator from the lookup.
8. Due Date/Time - Specify the Due date and time the activity is to be completed.
9. Entered by - View Only.  Defaults with the logged in operator's initials.
10. Entered Date/Time - View Only.  Defaults based on the computer's date/time (Does not use ProfitMaker's login Date).

Finding and Filtering Activities

The top portion of the activity manager screen allows you to find and filter your activities.  There are several pieces of information you can use as filters. 

We find the Status of activities especially useful in filtering for tasks that are relevant to current efforts.  For example, to view a completed task, simply check the Completed selection in the Status section of the Activity Manager's Search by area.

Activity Progress

Within the activity list section, the user can double click an activity's progress icon located in the left most column to increment the progress percentage (increments of 25%).  Once an activity is completed, the activity can no longer be edited.

Interface to Outlook

The activity can also be sent to Microsoft Outlook as an appointment or as a task.  Simply highlight the activity in the list and click the appropriate button.