Creating and managing tasks for leads, contacts, and deals

To help you manage your lead, contact, and deal related activities, Sell provides the ability to add and manage tasks. For example, you might create a task for yourself to reach out to a new lead and set a date and time for its completion.

Tasks can be directly associated with leads, contacts, and deals.

Note: In the Enterprise and Elite versions of Sell, you can automate the creation of tasks. For more information, see Creating and using automated task actions.

This article covers the following topics:

• Adding tasks
• Updating tasks
• Deleting tasks
• Marking tasks as complete
• Filtering your task list
• Viewing a lead, contact, or deal’s next task 
• Creating automated tasks, triggers, and actions

Adding tasks

Tasks can be created and managed on the Tasks page and also on the lead, contact, and deal cards.

To add a task from the Tasks page

1. Select the Tasks page.

   

2. Click the + Task button.

   

3. Enter the task details. You can also associate a task with a lead, contact, or deal using the Related To field.

   

4. Click Create and the task will be added to your task list and, if you’ve associated a lead, contact, or deal with it, it will also appear as an active task on the lead, contact, or deal card.

   

To add a task from the lead, contact, or deal card

1. From the Leads, Contacts, or Deals pages, select a lead, contact, or deal.
2. In the Active Tasks panel, select the Add Task button.

   

3. Enter the task details as shown in the example above and then click Create. The task will be added to the Active Tasks panel on the lead, contact, or deal card and also on the Tasks page.

Note: You can also create tasks for leads when converting them to contacts (see Converting leads).

Updating tasks

Tasks can be updated from either the Tasks page or or from a lead, contact, or deal card.

To update a task on the Tasks page

1. Open the Tasks page.
2. Hover your cursor over the task you want to update and the Edit Task icon (a pencil) will appear, click it.
3. Change the details as needed (for example, changing the due date or time).
4. Click Update to save the updated task.

To update a task from a lead, contact, or deal card

1. Open the task from a lead, contact, or deal card.
2. Change the details as needed (for example, changing the due date or time).
3. Click Update to save the updated task.

Deleting tasks

If you want to delete a task, rather than mark it as completed, from either the Tasks page or or from a lead, contact, or deal card.

To delete a task on the Tasks page

1. Open the Tasks page.
2. Hover your cursor over the task you want to update and the Delete Task icon (a trash can) will appear, click it.
3. You’ll be prompted to confirm that you want to remove the task. Click Remove.

To delete an from a lead, contact, or deal card

1. Open the task from the Tasks page or from a lead, contact, or deal card.
2. Click the Delete Task button. You’ll be prompted to confirm that you want to delete it.

Marking tasks as complete

As tasks pass their specified due date and time, they are marked in red to indicate that they have not been completed on time. You can either update the tasks to change the due date and time or mark the task as completed. You can do this on the Tasks page or from a lead, contact, or deal card.

Simply click the task’s completion check box.

You can reactivate a task by clicking the completion check box again (unselecting it).

When you mark a task as complete, it is removed from the Active Tasks panel on the lead, contact, and deal card. On the Tasks page, you can view completed tasks by selecting the Status = Done filter (described in the next section).

You can also mark a task as complete on the Sell Dashboard.

Filtering your task list

The Tasks page allows you to view and sort your tasks based on specific criteria. For example, you can quickly filter all your active or completed tasks.

To apply filters to your task list, you use the Filters panel.

The Status filter is always active; meaning that you can view either all your active tasks or all your completed (done) tasks. The other filter options, such as Relation, are secondary filters and are applied to either the active or completed tasks (whichever status you’ve chosen to view in the task list).

You can remove the secondary filters by clicking the Clear button.

Viewing a lead, contact, or deal’s next task

In the Table view for leads, contacts, and deals, you can add the Next Task field and see the next upcoming task.

For more information about adding custom fields, see Creating and managing custom fields.

Creating automated tasks, triggers, and actions

You can use Automated Actions (Sell Enterprise and Elite) to automatically create tasks. To create triggers and or actions to automate setting tasks, use third party applications such as Zapier with Sell (requires Sell Professional, Enterprise, or Elite). 

You can also update tasks attributes through the Zendesk API or reach out to Zendesk to learn about the options that help with task updates.