Salesforce Tasks are a key feature that helps you stay on top of your to-do list and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.
You can use Salesforce Tasks for a variety of purposes, from following up with leads and customers to scheduling meetings and tracking progress on projects. So if you’re looking for a way to organize and excel at your tasks, let’s dive into all the ways Salesforce Tasks can help!
Understanding Salesforce Tasks
Salesforce Tasks are essentially a to-do list or a reminder of things that need to be done. You can assign Tasks to specific users, accounts, or contacts, and associate them with other records such as opportunities or cases. You can create them manually or automatically with workflows.
Each Task has different statuses, due dates, priorities, and reminders. From there, you can view them in a list or on a calendar, as well as filter them by various criteria (owner, status, date, etc.).
In practice, sales and customer service teams find Salesforce Tasks extremely helpful for tracking (and automating) follow-up actions with customers, scheduling appointments, setting reminders for important events, and more.
If you’re a manager, you can use Salesforce Tasks to track the progress of sales reps, measure the effectiveness of their campaigns, and identify areas for improvement.
How to Create Tasks in Salesforce
Task Creation Process
Creating a task in Salesforce is a simple process. To create a new task, follow these steps:
- Click on the “Tasks” tab in the navigation bar.
- Click the “New Task” button.
- Fill out the required fields, such as the subject, due date, and status.
- Click “Save” to create the task.
Once you’ve created a task, you can assign it to a specific user, associate it with an account or opportunity, and add additional details such as comments and attachments.
Customizing Task Fields
You can also customize the fields based on your needs by doing the following:
- Click on the “Tasks” tab in the navigation bar.
- Click the gear icon in the top right corner and select “Edit Object Fields”.
- Select the “Task” object and click “Next”.
- From here, you can add, remove, or edit fields to fit your needs.
- Click “Save” to save your changes.
We sincerely recommend taking the time to customize the task fields, so your team doesn’t have to adapt to the way Salesforce works – but the other way around. It’ll save you a lot of time!
Setting Task Reminders
Setting reminders for your tasks helps you stay on top of your to-do list and ensures that nothing falls through the cracks. Fortunately, getting pings at the right moment is quite simple!
- Open the task that you want to set a reminder for.
- Click the “Set Reminder” button.
- Choose the date and time.
- Click “Save” to set the reminder.
Once you’ve set a reminder, you’ll receive an email notification at the specified date and time.
Automation for Salesforce Tasks
You can automate actions based on your Salesforce Tasks in several ways, including the following:
Set Salesforce Tasks Workflow Rules
Workflow rules can be used to automatically create tasks based on certain criteria.
For example, you can create a workflow rule that creates a follow-up task for a lead if the lead is not contacted within a certain timeframe. Similarly, if a contact’s contract is scheduled to renew within 30 days, you could automate a task to remind the account executive to contact them.
You can also use workflow rules to update the status of tasks or assign tasks to specific users or queues. For example, if a customer has a technical question, you could automatically assign a task to the technical support representative instead of the general queue.
Process Builder or Flows for Task Automation
With Process Builder or Salesforce Flows, you can create complex workflows that automate tasks based on multiple criteria.
For example, you can set a process that creates a task when a new opportunity is created, and then assigns the task to a specific user based on the opportunity owner.
Or, even more advanced, suppose an opportunity stage is updated from “Prospecting” to “Qualification” and then to “Needs Analysis.” You can create a task for the sales rep to conduct a detailed needs analysis and gather further requirements from the prospect.
Similarly, you can use Salesforce Tasks and Process Builder to help with lead scoring. When a new lead is created and meets specific scoring criteria based on demographics, behavior, and engagement, you can assign the lead to the rep with the highest success rate in converting similar high-scoring leads.
Integration with Other Apps
One of the most popular Salesforce Tasks integrations includes the integration with your email tools such as the G-suite and Office 365. The issue so far is that it’s hard to make native Salesforce integrations work well for syncing and reporting – EAC doesn’t permanently store records, and others are even clunkier.
The best option for integrating your email and calendar with Salesforce to make the most of your Salesforce Tasks is Match My Email.
Integrating Salesforce Tasks with Match My Email for Outlook
With Salesforce for Outlook retired, Match My Email steps in to provide an even more robust solution for your Outlook-to-Salesforce integration.
Firstly, Match My Email automates email and event logging to Salesforce, so you can easily create tasks based on the emails you receive. Need to follow up with a lead? Need to change the opportunity score? No matter the Salesforce Task trigger, if it relies on email, Match My Email will support it.
Secondly, you get permanent data storage. The typical issue with other Salesforce Outlook integrations was the lack of permanent storage. With Match My Email, your emails, and event data are synced into Salesforce permanently, so you can use it for Flows, Tasks, reporting, and more.
Finally, there’s no learning curve. You can set up the integration yourself, allowing the end users to hit the ground running without any opportunities slipping through the cracks!
Gmail Integration
Einstein Activity Capture never worked quite as well as it needed to. And if you’re hoping to create Salesforce Tasks from your Gmail emails, you’ll hit a wall at automating them.
In contrast, Match My Email logs your emails permanently, so you can easily use your Gmail and calendar data to set reminders, create Salesforce Tasks, and follow up on auto-pilot!
Unlock more value from Salesforce Tasks. Integrate Match My Email and stay on top of customer communication!
Reporting and Analytics
Managing work is one thing. Reporting on it so you can analyze and improve is another beast. Thankfully, Salesforce provides a range of Task reporting and analytics tools!
Salesforce Task Reports
Once your tasks are complete, it’s time to report on them. You can create custom reports on the tasks, from operational ones to understand the time spent on them to high-level ones to understand efficiency.
You can filter your Salesforce tasks by criteria such as due date, status, and priority. Plus, you can group them by fields like owner, account, or opportunity. Then, visualize them as tables, charts, and graphs to quickly identify trends and patterns.
Dashboards and Analytics
Much like other Salesforce features, Salesforce Tasks come equipped with dashboards and analytics. You can customize the dashboards with various components like charts, metrics, and tables. When you’re ready for a micro-perspective, drill down into your data.
Best Practices for Salesforce Tasks
Managing tasks in Salesforce can be overwhelming if not done correctly. Firstly, remember the standard rules of prioritization: urgency and importance. You can always use the Eisenhower Matrix and adapt your Salesforce Tasks fields accordingly. The goal is to always have your team focused on tasks needing immediate attention.
When you have highly-important tasks, set reminders. There’s no reason to miss deadlines.
Use Flows and automation to assign tasks to the right people on the team. Depending on your use case (whether you use them in Sales Cloud or Service Cloud, for example), you can look into each team member’s expertise for specific sectors. Similarly, use strong email integrators like Match My Email to turn emails into the right tasks.
Finally, templatize everything. Create templates for similar Salesforce Tasks, so you can ensure your reporting is fully valid and you’ve standardized the input data.
Of course, if your team members already use Salesforce Tasks, invest in specific Salesforce training to boost your efficiency even more.
Improving Your Task Management in Salesforce
Success starts at the task level. Every big project had to be broken down into manageable chunks of action – and it’s at this level that organizations are made (or broken).
With Salesforce Tasks, you not only improve task management but also foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and excellence, paving the way for enhanced productivity and success.
If you’re already in the Salesforce ecosystem, maximize its value. Implement Salesforce Tasks into your day-to-day (today)!
