Work Smarter in Calendar and Events

Sales reps can use object calendars to display milestones related to specific records, such as opportunities and tasks. For example, Lance has some important opportunities to close this month. He wants to make sure that he’s completing tasks for those opportunities on time and prioritizing his clients effectively. Lance creates an object calendar to show the dates of all his upcoming opportunities based on their close dates.

Admin Maria can help her reps customize their object calendars by creating custom objects and list views on which they can base their object calendars. Reps like Erin and Lance can use list views to see more events listed in one view to help them plan their days or review past events. Plus, they can create custom list views to review events based on contacts, leads, and other data points.

Reps can adjust which fields display in (most of) these list views or use them as starting points to customize list views that focus on the data that’s most important to them.

To make things easier for her reps, Maria also created a custom list view for all of her reps to use.

Now, let’s see how Maria works with calendar settings to make scheduling easier for Howard.

1. From Setup, enter Users in the Quick Find box, then select Users.
2. Select Create New View.
3. Complete all required fields and make the list visible to the necessary users. Then, click Save.

4. From Setup, enter Activity in the Quick Find box, then select Activity Settings.
5. Select Add user lists to calendar views in Lightning Experience. Then click Submit.

Now when the reps select the Add Calendars option in the Other Calendars section of the Calendar side panel, they’ll see user lists as an option in the Add Calendars dialog box.

When users add a user list, all the users on that list display in their Other Calendars section. They can toggle the list on or off, depending on their scheduling needs. So, after Howard adds the user list that includes Erin and Lance’s calendars, he can quickly schedule an evaluation for a client while they’re on the phone, keeping the sales process moving.

To be sure her reps get the most out of user list calendars, Maria makes sure they know about availability view. Reps can see a day view with all their visible calendars in columns to easily compare schedules based on a client’s availability.

Once their calendars are customized and connected, Maria makes sure her sales reps have everything they need for scheduling on their event layouts. Reps benefit from seeing attendees, creating recurring events with event series, and setting reminders.

If you haven’t already, review the benefits of syncing events between Salesforce and Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar using Einstein Activity Capture. Attendees on Salesforce events only receive invitations if your org is set up to sync through one of these products.

Here’s a list of the standard event layout fields you should consider adding. Feel free to add others or customize your own fields as well.

Another way to make scheduling easier for your reps is by turning on the auto-relate attendees feature. Lance and Erin often create events with clients and want to make sure their events show up in the Activity feed on the contact’s record page. The auto-relate attendees feature allows reps to add attendees to meetings and have the appropriate record automatically added to the Name field. Here’s how Maria activates this feature.

1. From Setup, enter Activity in the Quick Find box, then select Activity Settings.
2. Select Auto-relate attendees to users' events in Lightning Experience.
3. Click Save.

If your company relies on different tools for client demonstrations or other purposes, you can catalog those items as resources in Salesforce. This way you can keep track of items and allow people to check out resources, sort of like a library system. Lance has a home visit to survey the site and needs a truck equipped with all of the tools and equipment for the techs to complete their assessment. Here’s how Maria sets up resources so Lance and the other reps have everything they need to demonstrate products or assess a client’s needs effectively.

1. From Setup, enter Public Calendars and Resources in the Quick Find box, then select Public Calendars and Resources.
2. Create a resource.
   • Click New, name the resource, select Active, and save the resource.
   • Click Sharing. Add the public groups, roles, or people who can book this resource and view it on their calendars.

Now Lance and Erin can automatically add a truck to the event for their onsite assessment so all the tech has to do is pick it up at the warehouse.

The next helpful tool for reps is global actions. Setting this up allows reps to quickly create events from opportunities and other standard objects in Salesforce. Say, for example, Lance comes across an opportunity who hasn’t been contacted in several months. He wants to schedule a meeting to follow up since the notes indicate the contact was interested in hearing more. Using global actions for events allows Lance and the other reps to quickly create events from opportunities and other standard objects in Salesforce. This way reps can move opportunities through their sales process even faster. Here’s how Maria sets this up.

1. From Setup, enter Actions in the Quick Find box, then select Global Actions.
2. Click New Action.
3. Select Create a Record as the Action Type.
4. Select the Target Object Event.
5. Select any standard label or enter a custom label for the action. Users see this label as the name of the action.
6. Customize the event layout. Users will only see this layout when creating events from global quick action buttons.

Maria set up user lists, resources, and public calendars to improve her reps calendar experience. Then she showed her reps how to customize their event list views and calendar views, which helped them save time, prioritize their work, and collaborate more easily. Maria also improved the event layout to ensure her reps have the information that’s most important to them.