Open Activity and Activity History in Lightning Experience Salesforce
Configuring the Activities in Lightning Record Pages
Many people are still preferring Salesforce Classic even though the Lightning Experience gives a greater adventure in Salesforce. One of the main reasons is the altered way of handling some functionalities that is very familiar due to the extensive use of Salesforce Classic for a long time.
People are just missing how comfortably they were working in Salesforce Classic and couldn’t adapt to the new releases with Lightning Experience.
In this article, we are going to discuss such a thing that is possible to be adapted in Lightning Experience as it is in Salesforce Classic and how it is behaving in Lightning Experience.
Before start looking at these functionalities, let’s discuss a bit about the Activity Management that Salesforce performs.
Tasks and Events are the elements of activities. Salesforce Activity and Work Management tools can assist you and your sales team in effectively organizing and managing your day, as well as preparing for any meetings and identifying which task is the most important right now.
A task is an action that isn’t planned for a specific day or time. It’s a to-do item that doesn’t have to have a deadline. For example, a list of emails that the user needs to send. An event is a calendar event (for example, meetings) that takes place on a certain date and time.
A user can quickly schedule tasks and events, assign them to other team members, prioritize them by the due date, and track them using custom lists and dashboards. The user can also use automatic alerts as well. Custom fields, Validation rules, Record types, and Page Layouts can all be used to personalize Tasks and Events.
Activities can be linked to objects like Accounts, Contacts, Cases, and Opportunities, or they can be used on their own as personal Events and Tasks.
The calendar or Task list on the main page can be used to view activities. Other users can be allocated to tasks and events.
Open Tasks and Events can be tracked in the Open Activities. Tasks that have been completed, events that have occurred, and emails that have been sent can all be monitored in the Activity.
The Open Activities associated list shows which tasks and calendar events (meetings and appointments) for that record are still outstanding. These activities are also visible on the user’s Home page in the My Tasks and Calendar sections, respectively.
When the user is ready to finish a task, mark it complete and transfer it to the Activity History in the related list. After the user’s calendar events have occurred, they will be automatically placed in the Activity History. The user will no longer receive reminders to complete the activity (if any have been set up) at that moment. Completed tasks are likewise removed from the user’s Home page’s My Tasks list.
Open Activities and Activity History are present on the page layout’s related list section in Classic. Open Activities allows the user to use the record type selection functionality to generate Task and event records (assuming the organization uses record types for Task and event records), whereas Activity History allows the user to log a call or send an email. In addition, the linked list displays the records that users have made.
The Open Activities and Activity History related lists and related list quick links are provided by default in Lightning Experience when users visit normal Lightning pages for the Case or Asset object’s records.
Other objects, such as Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, and activity-enabled custom objects, may not have the Open Activities and Activity History in related lists by default on standard Lightning pages because of the Activities (Activity Timeline) lightning component has superseded or replaced them.
In addition, if the User’s Profile does not have Read access to the Linked To field of the Task’s Field Level Security, the related listings Open Activities and Activity History may not appear on their pages.
Salesforce has provided a standard lightning component in Lightning that displays the activities to create the task and other actions, as well as an activity timeline that displays the record you’ve already produced. The task and events that are still to occur will be displayed in the Next step area of the activity timeline, while those that have already occurred will be displayed in the Past activities section.
Some people who are die-hard fans of Salesforce Classic and willing to migrate to Lightning Experience may feel incomplete to have this Activity Component and to have the Activities in the related list as it is in the Salesforce Classic.
This is still possible in Lightning Experience. We were given the ability to choose the default Activity view in the Summer ’19 version, selecting between the Lightning only expanding activity timeline or the activities related listings view that matches Classic capabilities.
Let’s see how this can be achieved in Lightning Experience.
As a user
A user can change this view by following the steps specified below without affecting the other user’s views.
- Click on the avatar and then select Settings
- Click Display & Layout and select Record Page Settings
Here we can see that Activity Timeline is selected. Let’s change it to Related Lists and save it.
- Refresh the record page tab
Now, the view has changed. Note that, this is for the particular user only. Other users can see the previous way only.
Now, let’s revert back to what we’ve done to check the other scenario.
As an Admin
As an Admin, we can define this for org specific in the following way.
- Setup > User Interface > Record Page Settings >
You can change it to Related Lists, refresh the record page tab and see.
Even though we have changed it for Org specific, we still get the Activity Timeline. It is because, for the user, we still have Activity Timeline enabled.
You can check using another User, there you can see the Activities in Related Lists as the Org specified customization was taken into the consideration. You’ve to change the user’s Settings to get in the Related Lists.
What if we need the Activities in both places? Activity Component as well as in the Related Lists? Is it possible?
Yes, it is possible. We can do this. Let’s see how.
For this, I’m reverting the Org Specific customization back to Activity Timeline.
Go to Edit Page
Add 2 Related List — Single component inside the Related List component.
Assign Open Activity and Activity History for those newly added components like this.
Save it and check the record again.
There you can see the Activities in Related Lists as well as in the Activity Component.
In this case, we need not Change the Record Page Settings for the Org or to any Users.
Cross-check with the Salesforce Classic and the Lightning Experience whether we achieved everything in Lightning Experience as we have in Salesforce Classic.
Here, you can see Mail Merge button is missing in Lightning Experience. So we’ve to add it here for Lightning. How to do that?
- Go to Buttons, Links, and Actions and Create New Button/Link and create Mail Merge Button as follows in the Child Object (Events).
Check the Syntax and save it.
- Go to the Parent Object (Accounts) and to the Related Lists, locate Activity History. Click that Gear symbol.
Add a newly created Button like this.
Save it, save the Page layout as well, and refresh the Account record page, and check for the button.
- Mail Merge button will be available.
You will get the following error when you click that button.
To solve this, go to User Interface and check the Enable Extended Mail Merge in the Advanced section. After that check again.
You may have to add Templates so that they’ll be listed here.
Hope this article can help. Share your thoughts too.
