Data Model

Understanding the data model is critical to maximizing the value of the Activity Tracking framework. We've intentionally kept the activity tracking data model quite simple, making it easier to understand and report on within Salesforce. Here's a quick view of the schema:

All activity tracking data is logged in a single 'Activities' object (ActOnIt__Activity__c). The 'Activities' object is connected to:

1. Message Action - The 'Activity Tracking' message action, which signifies the specific type of activity that took place. See 'Creating Activities' for details.
2. The related record - The activity's related Salesforce record (e.g. Lead, Case, Opportunity etc). This provides access to related record details in reporting.
3. Related activities - There are 5 additional lookup relationships (named 'Related Activity [x]') to other ActOnIt__Activity__c entries. This is how we can report on activity relationships. See 'Creating Relationships' for details.

Example Activity

Before we see how it works, let's look at the data captured for a single ActOnIt__Activity__c entry:

Here are some of the visible fields:

Information

• Owner - The owner of the activity. Most activities will be assigned to a 'Default Activity Tracking Owner queue' as they are not explicitly owned by a user (multiple users could execute the activity for the related record).
• Message - A link to the related Act On It alert or prompt message record (for activities originating from a message button click).
• Action Name - The name of the activity's related action e.g. Phone Call, Viewed Record, Take Ownership (etc).
• Action - A link to the Message Action configuration.

Record Details

• Record Id - The Id of the related record e.g. the Lead Id.
• Related Record Type - The related record's data type (e.g. Lead).
• Record Creation Date/Time - The date the related record was created.
• Record Link - A link to the related record.

Action Details

• Executed By - The user who first executed the action.
• Executed Date/Time - The date/time the action was first executed.
• Last Executed By - The last user to execute the action for the related record.
• Last Executed Date/Time - The last date/time the action was executed.
• Time Since Record Creation - The elapsed time from when the related record was created to when this action was executed.
• Action Count - The total number of times this action was executed for the related record.

Note - There are several other fields available behind the scenes for reporting purposes (e.g. fields that calculate the elapsed times between events for aggregated reporting).

How does it work?

The first time an activity takes place for a given record an ActOnIt__Activity__c entry will be created. If the activity occurs more than once, the existing ActOnIt__Activity__c is updated (e.g. the action counter is incremented and the 'Last Executed Date/Time' is recorded etc). 

For example, let's imagine we have automation that captures when a lead is viewed by the owner. When the lead is first viewed, an ActOnIt__Activity__c record is created and linked to both the 'Viewed Record' action and the lead. The 'Action Count' is set to 1 and the 'Executed By' is set to the lead owner. If the owner closes the lead and later returns to it (i.e. views the lead a second time), the existing ActOnIt__Activity__c entry will be updated. The 'Action Count' will be incremented to 2 and the 'Last Executed Date/Time' will be updated.

You'll therefore be able to report on this data to answer:

• Which leads have not yet been seen (i.e. which have no activity entry for the 'Viewed Record' action)?
• Which leads have been seen more than once and remain unactioned?
• What is the average number of time a sales rep will return to a lead before giving up?

Related Activities

As mentioned, each activity can be linked to several other related activities, depending on the configured 'Activity Relationships'. There can be a maximum of 5 related activities for a given action type. This allows you to track and report on the time between activities and the number of times one activity takes place before another. For example, connecting an 'Assigned Lead' action to a 'Phone Call' or 'Email' action will allow you to report on the average time it takes sales reps to action their leads. Connecting a 'Phone Call' activity to a 'Made Contact' activity, will reveal how long it takes to make contact after an initial call, and how many call attempts were required to make contact (i.e. reporting on effort/cost of sale).

Related activities can be seen on the Activity record:

Each slot will be reserved for a specific type of activity, as per the relationship configuration. It's important to understand the configuration as that will provide context to the data. See 'Creating Relationships' for more details. 

Let's look at an example: An 'Assigned Lead' activity's related activity 1 slot might be reserved for initial contact activities e.g. phone call, sms, email (etc). So when a call is made, or sms/email is sent, the (first) resulting activity will be automatically assigned to related activity 1 (as seen above). In this example, all initial contact activities will be competing for the same slot (first activity wins). This provides a wealth of insight as we can now report on:

1. Speed to action - The time it takes from leads being assigned to being actioned (by team, by sales reps, over time etc).
2. Preferred Contact Method - Related Activity 1 will have a mixture of activity types (phone, email, sms), so you can report on lead conversion by channel of communication (to see if there's a better option) and use that to inform your sales strategy.
3. Neglected Leads - Reporting on 'Assigned Lead' activities with NO activity in related activity 1 slot will reveal the leads that have had no action. The longer a lead goes unactioned the colder the lead gets.

In addition to reporting, Act On It can monitor tracking data and step in to help teams and managers, catching issues before they escalate and driving best practice behaviors in real time.

Reporting

Most of your reporting can be achieved by reporting on the ActOnIt__Activity__c object where you can filter based on the action of interest, the related activity and related record details. Alternatively you can also report on the related record data directly and use cross object filters to hone in on record based on the existence or absence of tracking entries that meet your defined criteria. See 'Filter Across Objects with Cross Filters' for details.

Won't this generate a lot of data?

Potentially, so here are a few considerations:

1. Data Volume - We highly recommend you be selective with the activities you track and only keep activity data within Salesforce for as long as it is operationally useful. A suitable archiving strategy to move the data to a Big Object or an external data platform is advised. Act On It has a data management feature to help you stay on top of your data volume and purge data after a configurable retention period.
2. We advise against creating additional fields on this object. Specifically; formula fields retrieving parent data will quickly cause you to hit a cross object reference limit imposed by the Salesforce platform. To work around this you can use lookup values in Report Types to retrieve any parent data that you'd like to access in your reporting. 
3. Please do not add any automation to this object as it may interfere with the logging behavior.