What's ahead ...

Slide	Topic
2	What is Solve360?
3	Accessing your workspace
4	Managing Contacts
5	Introducing Activities
6	Activities that “super-charge” Contacts
7	Organizing Projects
8	Activities that “super-charge” Projects
9	Sharing Project information with others e.g. clients
10	Introduction to Reporting and Updating Activities
11	Next Actions report (what needs to get done)
12	Calendar (where do we need to be)
13	Follow-ups (keep tabs on situations to get the outcome you want)
14	Opportunities (deal pipeline, revenue and resource forecast)
15	Recent Activity (who has spoke/met with who and what was the outcome)

Click on the Next link located in the top-right corner of this page to continue ...

Solve360 is where CRM meets project management for serious business

All business success can be traced to two key factors; great client relationships (CRM) and how effectively your team gets things done (PM). Nail these two and you will be laughing all the way to the bank. Solve360 is the place your team will call home and includes:

• All your contacts organized into lists and a journal of all prior history and promises you need to keep
• Project blogs that help you organize information and processes related to projects or business transactions
• Simple lists to organize and track activities such as events, tasks, notes, email messages, etc.
• Customizable fields and templates to streamline work-flow
• A central group calendar with nifty options
• Project reporting and time tracking capabilities
• Revenue opportunity tracking from lead to client and beyond

Your transition will be seamless as Solve360 imports data from your old applications and integrates with the likes of Google Apps, Freshbooks, Rackspace, Constant Contact and more. Solve360 works around you and your processes. You know how to run your business, so we are not going to force you to change. Solve360 is your central coordinated workspace that will save you time, get more accomplished and serve your clients better. Extend the skills and knowledge of your best sales people and project managers to your entire organization.

With Solve360 there's less to learn and much to gain.

Welcome to your new workspace.

Logging into your workspace

To log in, simply enter your email address and password in the appropriate fields on the Solve360 login screen.

When you log in, your Solve360 workspace is exactly as you left it so you won't skip a beat when you return from lunch or start a new work day e.g. windows in the same position, last contacts opened in tabs, forms remember the last values you used so you don't need to keep changing them.

Once logged in, on the top left corner of the screen, you will notice the Solve360 menu button. This is the launching pad for all your contact management and project related activities. Clicking on the this button reveals your options in a drop-down menu. This jump-start tutorial will cover the three options that are vital to your everyday work activities:

1. Manage Contacts Search, review, add or edit contact information for clients, prospects, vendors, companies, etc.
2. Organize Project Blogs Add, edit, review, take notes and collaborate your team's current, past or future projects
3. Report and Update Activities See in real-time what others are working on, what has been done and what needs to be done

Now, let's learn the fundamental components to each of these three options...

Managing Contacts

Business is all about relationships. The most important part of business is connecting, communicating and following up with all of your company's contacts. Even the best rolodex doesn't cut it anymore. Relationships need to be nurtured and Solve360 will bring your interactions to a whole new level.

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Manage Contacts

Adding a new contact Add contacts and link them to companies, projects, other contacts and more on the same screen.

• Click the Create a Contact button at the top left corner of the window, the contact's details will be shown on the right side of the page in two sections:
  
  The top gray-colored section contains the need-to-know snippets of information about your contact such as Name, Phone Number, Email Address, Website, etc.
  
  The bottom white section is a journal or log of all information relating to your interactions with that contact. This may include notes from prior conversations, email messages, meetings, files, etc. This is where Solve360 goes beyond the competition. Great relationships are not about remembering phone numbers. Solve360 provides a record of every interaction plus scheduled reminders and even automated emails to make sure you keep your connections close.
  
  
• Fill in the blank fields in the top section with as much or as little information as you need e.g. First Name, Last Name, Job Title, Company, Business Email, Website, etc. As you type values into the fields, Solve360 automatically saves your data when you click away from the field. If you need to answer a call or you just get side-tracked, you can pick up where you left off without a single hiccup.
  
  Create a few contacts in your account now so you can try out the features we're going to introduce next.

Tip The administrator account (generally the person that created your Solve360 account) can move, remove and add custom fields to manage information unique to your business.

Finding a contact Not everyone is great with names. Solve360's search options make it fast and easy to locate your contacts, even with limited information.

• You will see a search box in the toolbar near the top of the contact window, start typing the name of a contact and as you press each key the list on the left side of the screen will automatically be filtered showing only contacts that match the search text. Normally you only need to enter a few characters to find the contact you are looking for. When you see the contact you need in the list, click on the row in the list to open the record into a new tab on the right side of the screen.
  
• Solve360 will keep the last ten contacts you've opened in separate tabs for quick access. You never need to close tabs; when necessary the system will automatically close the oldest one to make room for a new one.
  
• When you look at the words to the left of the search box you'll notice that there are more options available to customize your search. Essentially Solve360 is using a simple sentence to describe what you want it to show you. Just read the phrase to understand what contacts are currently being shown in the list and click on the underlined words to reveal even more options.

Modifying a contact Revise contact information or add new, need-to-know or nice-to-know information as it presents itself.

• Open the Contact you wish to modify by clicking once on its record in the list on the left side of the window, or its tab if one is already available
  
• Click the "Show form" button placed above the contact's information

All your contact's information becomes instantly editable, and all the available fields appear so you can add, edit or change information. When you're satisfied with your contact's updated information:

• Click the "Hide form" button to return to the contact's original view

Notice something missing? There was no save button. Changes are saved as soon as you leave the field e.g. click somewhere else on the screen, press tab, etc. This is a small example of how we've made Solve360 easy to use. In fact, we think you can enter information faster in Solve360 than you can on paper.

Wait! Click "Show form" again so we can check out the special powers this form has.

Appointing an Account Manager The "Assigned to" field is used to designate someone from your team as the primary go-to person for this contact. Setting this value does not limit who can access the contact page, it does however make it easy to recognize who is responsible for it. There is also a simple way to search on this value, in the toolbar click on the underlined words "All Contacts" and choose "Assigned to > {user's name}" which will show a list of contacts the selected person is responsible for.

Building your contact community Many of your contacts are related to each other in some way -- they may share an employer, company, personal relationship or could even know one of your own team members on a personal level. Plotting out these relationships and connections helps you to seize opportunities and see how each contact fits into the scope of your business. There are two ways to use Solve360 to note these connections when modifying a contact:

Company Communities The "Company" field in the contact form allows you to specify how the contact is associated with a company.

• As you begin to type the company name, existing companies in your system appear and can be selected, if an existing company is not found a new company will automatically be created in the system when you click off the field
• After linking a company, a new text field with the hint "How do they relate" appears below the company name, here you can optionally add a note as to how the contact relates to this company e.g. founder, board member, employed date range, etc.

One contact can be associated with several companies -- you are not just limited to one.

Contact Relationships The "Related to" field in the contact form allows you to recognize social and/or professional networks among your contacts.

• As you begin to type the name of the person whom is in some way related to the contact in the "Related to" field, existing contacts in your system pop up and can be selected
• After linking additional contacts, a new text field with the hint "How do they relate" appears, here is where you can optionally add a note about how do the two contacts relate to each other e.g. spouse, friend, same alma mater, referred by, etc.

The relationship automatically appears on both contacts' records, and you can easily navigate back-and-forth among all your relationships by clicking on their name on the page.

Organizing contacts You may be familiar with organizing contacts into "folders" e.g. a folder for each type of contact - prospects, clients, vendors. This creates dilemmas when you need to track additional information about the contact. For example, what type of client are they, what technology do they use, are they interested in attending your next conference, etc. You wind up with copies of contacts, folders nested in folders nested in folders and by the time you find the information you need, you've missed lunch.

While folders limit you to placing a contact in just ONE folder, Category Tags enable information like contacts to be in many places at once, often called "lists". You can read more about Solve360's Category tags here. It's as if you copied and pasted your contacts into each folder that it relates to for easy access.

To assign a Category Tag(s) to a Contact:

• Open the Contact
• Click the "Category Tags" button on the lower right side of your Contact's information form
• Select all the relevant category tags for that contact e.g. Cold lead, Client to nurture, Need to follow up, Retailer, B2B, etc.

Category tags are neatly displayed on the contact's page where the team can quickly see how this contact relates to your business. This is helpful, but the real value is found when you need to search for contacts matching certain tags i.e. organize contacts into digital "lists" for quick, easy reference.

Searching by category tags Return to the toolbar's search statement, click on the underlined word "All contacts" and notice there is an option called "Category tags" which allows you to list contacts that are tagged in a certain way. This is a simple way to manage all kinds of lists e.g. prospects to follow-up on etc.

Category tags are one of the simplest and most useful features in Solve360 - if after using the system for a few weeks you notice you're not using them, ask yourself why not.

Tip Creating and modifying category tags is limited to the administrator account. Why? Category Tags often relate to a work-process and when they change we think it's best that you compare notes with your team before making the change so everyone knows how they are to be used.

Introducing how to work with Activities

Activities record and manage everything worth knowing about a contact, company or project. They are the powerful bits of information that track what has happened and what is planned.

Adding Activities to a Contact Record or Project Blog Add Activities related to contacts or projects such as events, call logs, notes, task lists, revenue tracking and file uploads.

• Open the Contact or Project Blog you wish to add an Activity to
• Hover over the Add an activity button
• Choose the Activity you would like to add
• Provide the necessary information
• Click outside of the blue box to save the new activity

Your activity will automatically appear above all previous recorded Activities. Activities and their specific items (such as an individual task in a task list) may be deleted, rearranged, commented on or edited in just one click. Keep reading to learn how.

Tip To place a new activity in a specific location on the page, right-click where you want the activity to appear, then choose the activity type from the list of options shown.

Icon	Activity	Description	Reported under Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities	Can track time
	Log a call	Record that a conversation happened for future reference	Activity changes for	Yes
	Schedule an event	Create an event for a call or meeting that will occur on a specific day and time Send out a meeting notice so the attendees can add the event to their own calendars, automatically send reminders	Next actions Calendar Activity changes for	Yes
	Queue a follow-up	Keep tabs on specific situations so you can keep checking in to push it forward towards a desirable outcome. Sets of follow-ups are typically worked on as a batch of work at the same time.	Follow-ups
	Add a simple note	A quick note or documentation which is fast to open and has consistent text formatting.	Activity changes for
	Add a formatted note	A simple word processor to add quick notes or documentation to a page	Activity changes for
	Track a revenue opportunity	For sales tracking, a simple way to manage your qualified deals so you don't lose track of them	Opportunities report Activity changes for
	Add a scheduled email	An email message that is sent at a future date & time, great for special reminders, follow-ups, and lead nurturing campaigns
	Add a task list	A container to manage a group of related tasks	Next actions (if milestone date is specified) Calendar (if milestone date is specified
	Task (After a tasklist is added, a "Add a task" link is shown to the right of tasklist's title)	A way to track lists of things that need to get done, they have many options to help you organize people and work	Next actions report Calendar (if due date is specified) Activity changes for	Yes
	Upload files from your computer	Any file format is acceptable, such as Microsoft Office docs, PDFs, media files, etc.
	Add a container for photos	A container to manage a group of photos, shows a thumbnail of each photo
	Add a link to an external website	A bookmarked web address that helps organize web resources related to that contact or project blog
	Add a link to a Google Doc	Links directly to a Google Doc so your team has all related information on the same page
	Add a section header to group items	As you add many activities to the contact and project blog pages you'll find it helpful to group related activities into different sections that can be opened and closed.
	Add a view for linked emails	A container that shows all email messages related to the particular contact or project blog.  This is a very useful feature that is further explained in the Linking Emails tutorial. Only one of these activities is needed on a page. If the option in the "Add an activity" dropdown is disabled it's because there is already a linked-emails activity on the page.

Deleting Activities or items in a Contact Record or Project Blog

• Hover over the Activity or item you wish to delete
• Click the "Delete Item" icon that appears (trash can)

The Activity instantly vanishes from the page.

Tip You can undelete any deleted item under Solve360 menu (top right) > Deleted Items.

Arranging/rearranging Activities or items in a Contact Record or Project Blog

When designing your website, or writing an important email, you arrange the content in a way that makes your story easy to follow. Contact and Project Blog pages are not confined to the structure of a traditional "system” and by simply arranging items on the page in a logical order you can convey important concepts or sequences more effectively.

• Hover over the Activity or item you wish to move
• Click and hold the "Move Item" icon that appears (overlapping arrows)
• Drag and drop Activity into desired location to easily organize information in the order you desire

Commenting on Activities or items in a Contact Record or Project Blog Relay information to and collaborate with your team members through Solve360's Comments function.

Comments can accompany Activities so your team members stay on the same page. Comments such as "Please read this" and "This needs to be revised" are more effective in your workspace where team members will see your comments in context rather than in email messages that are often forgotten and buried.

• Hover over the Activity or item you wish to comment on
• Click the "Post comment" icon that appears (speech bubble)

A text box automatically appears under the Activity. The formatting toolbar allows you to change font color, style, highlighting, etc.

• Type and format your comment
• Click anywhere outside of the comment box to submit comment and return to normal view

Your comment will now appear in a blue box below the Activity or item it corresponds to. You can delete or revise your comment by hovering over it and selecting the "Delete" or "Edit" icon.

Editing Activities or items in a Contact Record or Project Blog

• Hover over the Activity or item you wish to edit
• Click the "Edit" icon that appears (outlined box)
• Click anywhere outside of the editing box to disable editing capabilities and return to normal view

Tip You can also edit an activity by double-clicking on it.

Introduction to Activities that super-charge Contacts

Schedule a call or meeting Add an event to your calendar, automatically send notices and reminder emails, right from your contact's record.

• Select the Contact you are meeting with
• Hover over the "Add an activity button"
• Select "Schedule an event"
• Enter key data in the appropriate fields
• Click anywhere outside of the form to add the call or meeting

Tip An event can also be scheduled from the calendar screen which helps determine the ideal time to meet, but you need to remember to link that event back to the contact you're meeting with.

Log a call Record the details of a conversation so you look smart the next time you follow-up with the contact and keep other team members in the know.

• Open the Contact you talked to
• Hover over the "Add an activity button"
• Select "Log a call"
• Enter key data in the appropriate fields:
• Date, time and duration of call
• Any details such as topics discussed
• Click anywhere outside the form to log the call

Track a revenue opportunity Monitor the progress of your leads and prospects so you don't lose track of the deals you've invested in and track patterns that will help you improve overall performance and profitability.

• Open the Contact you foresee a revenue opportunity with
• Hover over the "Add an activity button"
• Select "Track a revenue opportunity"
• Enter key data in the appropriate fields
• Click anywhere outside the form to add the revenue opportunity

Add a view for linked emails Automatically attach email messages to their correlating Contact, Company and Project Blogs. This means that all prior email correspondence is in one place and can be shared with other users. This is one of the most life-changing features of Solve360. To utilize all its benefits, read the featured tutorial about Linking Emails. This activity is so useful when you create a contact Solve360 automatically adds this activity to the page for you. However, if it's been deleted or to add one to a company and project blog page do the following:

• Select the Contact you would like to link email messages to
• Hover over the "Add an activity button"
• Select "Add a view for linked emails"

A placeholder for linked emails is placed on the page where all email messages in the workgroup's email folder that relate to the page will be shown. If the option is disabled it's because there is already a linked-emails activity on the page.

What about Companies?

We believe people work with people so we naturally place an emphasis on Contacts. However, in certain situations your business may need to manage activity at a company level - no problem. In the previous section we showed you how to create a contact and link it to a new, or existing company. You can also manage those company records directly and they have all the same features and functionality as the contacts records we reviewed above.

Adding a new company Add companies and link them to projects and contacts.

• Click the Create a Company button at the top left corner of the window

Finding a company List companies instead of contacts

• In the toolbar at the top of the contact window, click on the underlined word "All contacts" then click on the option called "All companies" which will now show you companies instead of contacts.

Organizing Projects

We mentioned before that great client relationships is the first part of business success. The second component is delivering on your promises. That is where Project Blogs come in. This is how you manage how things get done.

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Organize Project Blogs

Contact pages are used to record the interactions with a client related to developing the relationship, building trust and qualifying business opportunities. Once the client buys something, your team needs to provision the product/service. If that requires coordination of information and people a Project Blog is created, linked to the contact and used to manage “the project”. The type of information related to building the relationship is normally quite different than information used to provide the product/service. That’s why it’s beneficial to manage project related information and activity in a different place.

Let's introduce the projects area by trying out a metaphor. Imagine your team is meeting a client in a conference room. Someone is standing near a whiteboard, marker in hand, making notes, listing tasks, circling items on it to take stock of a plan, share ideas and work through questions. Solve360 Project Blogs help you manage that same type of flow of ideas and information, but online where it is accessible and more efficient. Everything known about a particular project or business transaction is in a single place where it can be updated as the situation unfolds.

You might consider also using Project Blogs to manage internal projects such as hiring, marketing campaign, office move, etc.

Since Project Blogs can be shared with any external person, some clients use Project Blogs to propose services to their clients i.e. a way to document the scope and plan of a proposed project, before the sale.

By working with many clients we know for certain that there is much benefit from sharing project information with your clients. Making a gesture to make project information available makes you more transparent, instills trust / understanding, demonstrates you have a process, and gets the client more vested in your process, which makes communication and decisions immensely easier.

The interface for Project Blogs is very similar to that of Contacts, and of all Solve360 functions. We promised there would be less to learn! The "Organize Project Blog" section has two columns. The left column lists all your current projects, arranged either alphabetically by name, or chronologically by the last date it was used (depending on which column is selected). The right column is the slate for projects. This is where you will actually be creating and working with your projects.

Creating a new Project Blog

• Click the "Create a Project Blog" button
• Fill in information such as the project's title, description and in the related-to field link the Project Blog to the client and anyone else who has an interest in the work e.g. contractors, staff, professionals, etc. Like contact information, Solve360 automatically saves your project data as it is entered in real time.

Introduction to Activities that super-charge Project Blogs

You can add any of the same activities mentioned in the contact section on a Project Blog. However, just like contacts there are a couple that are used more frequently than the rest.

Add a tasklist Place a container for project tasks and milestones

A tasklist is a container for a set of related tasks; it is not a task itself. A tasklist can group tasks that relate to a phase, a common outcome, or a particular area of work etc.

• Open the Project Blog you wish to add a task list to
• Hover over the "Add an activity" button
• Select "Add a tasklist"
• It's common to enter only the Title of the tasklist, however there are additional fields available to further customize the list further
  
  

  (Title)	The title of the entire task list, such as "Marketing Brochure"
  (Add milestone)	A tasklist with a date will appear as a special milestone on the Next Actions and Calendar pages, milestones are general indicators to help the team manage their activity around, but do not have any special powers of their own.
  (Description)	Description of the task list -- this will appear directly under the title, providing an area to further explain the general objectives or instructions, etc.
  (Complete)	When a tasklist is marked as complete it will no longer show as a milestone in the Next Actions report
  (Do not display on the published view or send notifications)	As we'll explain a bit later on, Project Blogs can be shared with people who do not have normal Solve360 accounts, such as your clients. This option allows you to hide a specific activity, in this case a tasklist and all the tasks within it, from that published view

  
  
• Click anywhere outside of the form to add the tasklist container to the Project Blog

Adding tasks to the tasklist

• Click on the Add a task link located to the right of the tasklist's name then enter task details
  
  

  (Title)	The title of the specific task, such as "Write copy"
  (Description)	Description of the task -- which appears below title in the task list. Generally this is where you document the background or instructions for the task.
  (Color label)	This option enables you to label items with color to group tasks by priority, type, or any other criteria you desire.
  (Responsible)	Assign this task to a specific individual.
  (Send email notification now)	Select to send an email to notify the responsible individual that they have been assigned this task.
  (Add schedule)	Enables a setting a Due date
  (Due)	The date the task is due on
  (Add time)	Narrow the due date to a specific time
  (Time remaining)	Enter time remaining for task to be completed, the start date of the task will be automatically determined by subtracting the time remaining from the Due date
  (Ignore weekends)	Select if you do not wish to include weekends in the start date calculation
  (On completion)	Enter email addresses of people who should be notified when the task is updated as completed (separate multiple addresses with a comma)

  
  
• Click anywhere outside of the form to add the task to the task list

Upload files from your computer Share files from your computer with your entire team

• Open the Project Blog you wish to upload the file to
• Hover over the "Add an activity" button
• Select "Upload files from your computer"
• Select the files from your computer you want to upload (notice you can select more than one at a time)
• Common file types include Microsoft Office docs, pdfs, media files, but any file type is acceptable
• The file now appears with its full title and an icon indicating the file type.

Add a link to an external website Create a quick link to an external website so you can quickly pull up relevant information from the Internet in context with your work

• Open the Project Blog you want to add a link to
• Hover over the "Add an activity" button
• Select "Add a link to an external website"
• Enter to site's URL e.g. http://www.norada.com
• Include a caption that will serve as the title visible to your team e.g. This is an example of great design ;)
• Click anywhere outside the form to add the link to the Project Blog
• Your link now appears in blue in the Project Blog. By clicking on the blue caption, you will be directed to the link in a new window.

Grouping and organizing Activities with section headers As your pages grow, group related items together to keep it easy to follow.

You learned how to rearrange your Activities and items by dragging them to a specific position on the page, but you can take your Project Blog's organization and flow to the next level with section headers. These headers group Activities and items together and make your Project Blog easier to navigate. For example, you may have headers that categorize sections by date i.e. "January Activities," by type i.e. "2010 Plan" or any categorization system that makes sense for your business.

Section headers are listed with other Activities. To create your Section Header, simply follow the same directions given to add any Activity. (Add Activity > Add a section header to group items)

The section headers act as a divider between sets of activities and will effect all activities that follow them, until the next section header. For example, when you click "Hide section details" all activities up until the next section header are affected.

Track time spent on tasks and more using time records If you bill your clients hourly, time records are a fundamental aspect of your business. Even if you bill on a per-project basis, you may want to monitor the time being spent on certain activities for productivity assessment purposes.

• Hover over the call log, event or task you wish to allocate time to
• Click the clock icon that appears
• Fill in the appropriate information, the date, person who performed the activity item, total hours, billable or not billable time and details that need to be reported

The time record now appears to the right of the item's title in a green box and are reported in the Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities > Show time tracking report for easy invoicing.

Sharing Project Blogs with your clients (or anyone else)

Wouldn't it be nice if your client could keep an eye on that "white-board" with all those notes and ideas and follow the changes as they happen? Project Blogs have a special feature that let you share the page with anyone and it's called "Publish". Publishing a page does not make a copy of it, what it does do however is enable access to a simplified view of the page without requiring a Solve360 account.

Publish the Project Blog page Provide each client with a direct link to their project page.

• Open the Project Blog to publish
• If you haven't already done so consider adding your own logo, or better yet, add your client's logo to the page by clicking "Show Form" and selecting a value in the Logo field
• Click on the "Publish" button in the top right-corner of the page
• Enter the recipient's email address (or contact name to help find it)
• Set the level of access you want this particular person to have to the entire Project Blog (Read only, Modify, or Add comments only)
• Click the "Publish" link on the panel
• The recipient will receive an email message with their own unique (and secure) web address:

The published version of the page does not allow the guest to edit any of the fields in the top of the page, or show any information that relates to other parts of the system such as category tags or related-to values.

Tip Try publishing a Project Blog to your own email address so you can experience the process and features as your client will (you should logout of your Solve360 account before clicking on the link). Notice anything missing? Your client won't need to remember another username and won't need to learn "your" system. They'll appreciate that!

You can publish a Project Blog to as many users as you need; each one gets their own web address.

Removing access to a published Project Blog

• Open the Project Blog that was published
• Click on the "Publish" button in the top right-corner of the page
• Click on the red "X" to the left of the person you want to remove access to

After introducing this feature we discovered that co-working with your clients in a common workspace can really help improve efficiency, however, you don't need your clients to be as active or excited about the Project Blog as you are to realize substantial benefits. Simply by publishing a project blog you become more accessible and transparent which instills trust, understanding and dramatically improves communication. Your clients are happier because they are more comfortable.

Report and Update Activities

The dashboard in your car relays important information at a glance. You can monitor or speed, check how much gas you have and make sure your engine is not over-heating with minimal effort. The Report and Update Activities in Solve360 works much the same way.

Throughout the day, you're busy focused on managing interactions with prospects and clients, completing existing projects and planning new projects. When you are performing this myriad of activities, it can be difficult to keep track of what you and your team's priorities and promises are. When you wake up in the morning and need to know where do we need to be and what needs to get done - that's where the options under Report and Update Activities comes in.

There are six simple reports to help you manage what's about to happen:

1. Next actions assigned to ...
2. Calendar events with ...
3. Follow-ups assigned to ...
4. Opportunities managed by ...
5. Activity changes for ...
6. Timeline for ...

And three simple reports to help you manage what has happend:

1. Time tracking for ...
2. Actions logged for ...

Next we'll review the most popular reports ...

Next actions assigned to ...

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities then choose Show next actions for... in the toolbar.

Think of this report like an air traffic controller's screen; here all your tasks and events are the planes that need to land in a specific order i.e. organized by the date they need to be completed by.

Filtering the list to something more manageable

• Use the filter in the toolbar to limit items by responsible team or individual to keep tabs on your own or others' priorities.
• Click on a group heading to collapse or expand a specific group of items

Editing events and tasks in the list

• Double-click in any of the report cells to edit an item, or click on a link to jump to the page the item is related to.
• As you complete items click on the checkbox to the left of the item's title and it will be marked as completed and removed from this report. The item will also be marked as complete on the page it is related to (it is never deleted).

Calendar events with ...

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities then choose Show calendar events with... in the toolbar.

The calendar view organizes all events and tasks that have a due date.

Changing the calendar view (weekly, monthly) Get an at-a-glance monthly view, zero-in on this week's activities or switch back-and-forth from monthly to weekly, just by clicking.

• You always start out by viewing the next five weeks i.e. month view
• Click once on one of the days of the week to expand the detail for a week
• Click once on any day in the expanded week to return to the month view

Adding new calendar items Add events that are private to you, shared with your team or more commonly directly linked to a contact, project blog or company

• Double-click on the calendar in the time and date you wish to add a new item
• Fill out the indicated data (see below)
  
  

  (What)	A descriptive title for the event, such as "Board Meeting"
  (When)	The date(s) the event will occur
  (All day)	Checking this indicates it is an all day event; un-check to specify a time
  (Repeats)	If it is a regular occurrence, select daily, weekly, monthly or yearly to automatically add events to the appropriate future dates
  (Where)	Location of the event or call information
  (Details)	Any details you wish to include as background to the session or agenda to follow
  (Show event as)	Determines who can see and edit the event, set it to private or shared
  (Show event as, Activity for)	This one's important -- linking the event to a contact, project blog or company will also show the event in the related pages's history and place an open link beside the name so that you can jump quickly to the page when the meetings starts, more details on this below
  (Open)	(If event is linked) Click to open the linked page
  (Internal Attendees)	The Solve360 users that are attending the event i.e. the event will appear in their calendar, they will receive notices and reminders
  (External Attendees)	Any person not using Solve360 i.e. one of your contacts or anyone with an email address attending the event, they will also receive notices and reminders
  (Send an email notification to all attendees now	This one is also important -- Check to send a notification email immediately after the event is closed, the email will include a special attachment which the recipient can use to add the event to their own calendar system e.g. Outlook, Google or iCal
  (Send an email reminder to all attendees)	Will automatically send an email reminding the internal and external attendees of the meeting the specified time before the event is scheduled to begin
  (Keep the event as a next action until someone completes it)	Normally calendar events just "slip off your radar" after the scheduled date has past, this option allows you to keep the item on your list of things to do i.e. the Next Actions list until it is actually marked as completed
  (Color label)	Select a label to distinguish activities/events by your organization system such as client, internal, on-site, off-site, etc.

  
  
• Click on the X in the top right corner of the event form window to save the changes and close the window.

Linking events to contacts Link events to contacts and switch from the contact's record to the event's record seamlessly

• Create a new event by double-clicking on the calendar in the date and time you wish to add the new event, or open an existing event by clicking-once on the event
• In the "Show event as" field start typing the contact's name you wish to link to
• Solve360 will intuitively propose a list of contacts, even before you finish typing
• Select a name from the list

To quickly jump to the linked contact, click the blue underlined "Open" link which now appears next to the contact's name.

Deleting calendar events

• Click once on the event you want to delete to open it in a form view
• Click on the "Delete" button in the top-right corner of the form window

Rearranging calendar items to different days/times As your plans change, update your calendar quickly just by clicking and dragging

• Click, drag then drop the item to the desired new location (date and time slot)

Follow-ups assigned to ...

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities then choose Show follow-ups assigned to... in the toolbar.

You need to keep tabs on situations to get the outcome you want. Event and Task activities will get them on your radar, but those activities have many options to set and a growing list will quickly clutter up your calendar. The solution is to place the light-weight activity "Queue a follow-up" on a contact, project blog or company page to get the details out of your head and into a shared list that's easy to manage.

Generally Follow-ups don’t interrupt your day and completing them doesn't require much preparation or time. At points during the work week that inside voice would say “lets knock off some follow-ups now”. Attentiveness impresses clients and moves the initiatives forward until they pay off.

Listing follow-ups When it's time to jump on your Follow-ups open their special report where working through them is a breeze.

• Use the filter in the toolbar to limit the list by who the follow-up is assigned to or when it's due.

Updating follow-ups Process your follow-ups and update them as you nudge then closer to the needed outcome.

• Simply double-click on the field you wish to update, make your change then click off the cell to save the change

Tip Quite often it takes a few attempts before you close a business initiative. Follow-ups have a neat feature called “bump”, when clicked will re-queue the Follow-up for a future date, and log the action so you have a history to refer to next time.

Differences between Follow-up, Task and Event activities

	Follow-up	Task	Event
Title	-	yes	yes
Description	yes	yes	yes
Attendees	-	-	yes
Responsible	optional	optional	-
Date	optional	optional	required
Bump to new date	yes	-	-
Email notification	optional	optional	optional
Email reminder	optional	optional	optional
Email on completion	-	yes	-
Priority	optional	optional	optional
Repeatable	-	-	optional
Mark as complete	yes	yes	optional
Shows on Calendar	-	yes	yes
Shows on Next Actions	-	yes	yes
Shows on Follow-up report	yes	-	-
Syncs with Google	-	yes	yes
On the Mobile and Tablet Apps	yes	yes	yes

Opportunities managed by ...

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities then choose Show opportunities managed by... in the toolbar.

As your team works with your contacts and identifies potential or qualified deals they'll place the activity "Add a revenue opportunity" on a contact, project blog or company page. This report tallies all of those activities into a pipeline that will ensure you team focuses on closing the deals and helps forecast future revenue.

Listing opportunities Opportunities are grouped by who is managing them and what their current status is.

• Use the filter in the toolbar to limit the list by person responsible or status of the opportunity e.g. won, lost, or in progress

Updating opportunities Track revenue opportunities and update them as you inch closer to closing.

• Simply double-click on the field you wish to update, make your change then click off the cell to save the change

The Note field is a great place to document why the opportunity was won or lost. Encourage your team to share experiences so that your entire organization benefits.

Tip The administrator can add additional custom fields to the opportunity to track information specific to your business process.

Activity changes for ...

To follow along open Solve360 menu > Report and Update Activities then choose Show activity changes for... in the toolbar.

The previous reports showed you how to quickly see what needs to happen i.e what you and your team have planned. The "activity changes for" report will tell you what has already happened. It answers questions like "how many calls did we make yesterday/last week and how did they go?". This gives you a great opportunity to catch up on what's been going on, identify patterns that can help make your processes more effective and pinpoint specific issues that need attention.

Just like all the other search filters Solve360 uses a simple sentence to describe what you want it to show you. Just read the phrase to understand what activities are currently being shown in the report and click on the underlined options to change the criteria.

What's next?

You should now have a better understanding of how Solve360's Contacts, Project Blogs and the Report and Update Activities features work together to manage your interactions with your clients and keep your team organized. Next, why not login to your own account and map these features to your day-to-day work processes. If you need additional information about a particular area you can also dig into our featured tutorials.