Activity Journals 

Use

You can use activity journals in activities in CRM Enterprise and CRM Mobile to record and update information gathered from customer visits or telephone calls. The information in the activity journal may or may not be product-related. An activity journal can contain the following information:

·        Type and number of products discussed with or samples handed out to customers, for example, in the Pharmaceuticals industry.

·        Position of products in store, for example: are they placed on promotional shelf? Are they placed at the check-out or near the entrance of the store?

·        Customer feedback

The information gathered in activity journals can be used to:

·        Track the distribution of samples in the Pharmaceuticals industry

·        Analyze sales data, for example, number of products handed out to customers

·        Track the progress of your sales team, for example, the number of discussions held with customers, and the result of these discussions

·        Detect possible problem areas, for example, slow and non-moving products

Integration

The data entered in the activity journal in CRM Enterprise is transferred to CRM Mobile, and vice versa. This allows you to display and maintain the activity journal in both systems, ensuring data consistency.

Prerequisites

Before you can work with activity journals, you need to have defined an activity journal template type and assigned it to an activity journal template. Both the activity journal template type and template can be used to store products with an activity. You can additionally use the template to work with pre-filled products.

For more information on working with template types, see Template Type Creation.

For more information on working with templates, see Template Creation.

Industry-Specific Fields in Activity Journals

For more information on how to work with industry-specific fields in activity journals, see the documentation under Industry-Specific Fields.

Additional Fields in Activity Journals

For more information on how to work with additional fields in activity journals, see the documentation under Additional Fields.

Specifics of CRM Enterprise

·        You define activity journals in the SAP Easy Access Menu under Activities ® Define Activity Journals. To create an activity journal, you need to create both a template type and a template.

·        In order to display the Activity Journals tab page during activity processing, you need to use a transaction type which contains the item categories ACT, ACT0, and ACT1. Transaction type 0020 (business activity with products) is delivered with the standard configuration and already contains these item categories. However, if you define your own transaction type, you need to define the above item categories manually. To do so, you can use transaction type 0020 as a basis for your new transaction type. For more information on the purpose of these item categories, see the documentation in the implementation guide, under Customer Relationship Management →Transactions → Settings for Activities → Activity Journal → Settings for Activity Journal.

Specifics of CRM Mobile

Information on maintaining activity journals in CRMMobile is available under Creation of an Activity Journal Template.

Features

You can carry out the following during activity journal definition:

·        Search for template types and templates using the locator in CRMEnterprise.

·        Specify mandatory templates for specific activity categories, and read-only and mandatory fields for templates. For more information, see Mandatory Templates and Mandatory and Read-Only Fields for Templates.

·        Work with Partner/Product Ranges (PPRs) and listings, and specify default values for these. For more information, see Partner/Product Ranges and their Default Values.

·        Assign products, product categories and product hierarchies to templates, and specify default values for these. For more information, see Product Assignment and their Default Values.

·        Work with alternative product IDs in the SAP Graphical User Interface (SAP GUI) and CRM Mobile

It is possible to multi-select products in the SAP GUI and CRM Mobile during activity journal definition and execution

·        Specify a frequency for each activity journal template

This enables you to specify how often an activity journal should appear for processing, in addition to its specified validity period.

You do this in Customizing for CRM, by choosing Transactions  ® Settings for Activities  ® Activity Journal  ® Define Display Frequency for Activity Journal.

For more information on working with template frequencies, see the documentation for this Customizing activity.

·        Assign notes to templates. You can enter explanations and information in the form of notes. You can change or add notes during template creation, even when the template is already set to Released. However, these notes are read-only during activity journal execution because they merely serve as information for your sales representatives, for example, regarding the purpose of the template.

During activity processing, other note fields are available to sales representatives, for example, in the Activities: Details, Activities: Notes, and Activities: Activity Journals tile sets.

 

·        Assign business partner hierarchy nodes or target groups to templates in order to specify for which business partners you want specific activity journals to be valid. Note that you can use R/3 or CRM hierarchy nodes. For more information, see Maintaining Business Partner Group Hierarchies.

·        Modify template types and templates with status Released according to the following criteria:

·        If the template type or template validity start date is in the future, you can change everything with the exception of the following:

¡        You cannot change the template type assigned to the template if mandatory fields and or products, product categories or product hierarchies are assigned to the template. When you save the template for the first time, the template type field becomes read-only. This means you cannot change the template type for a template that has already been saved. However, you can still delete the template.

If the template type or template validity start date is the current date or in the past, you can make the following changes:

¡        Add products, product categories and product hierarchies to the template

¡        Change the language dependent name for the template type or template

¡        Change, add or delete template notes

¡        Change the validity end date for the template type or template

You cannot change the template type once it has the status Released for Template.

 

·        Assign trade promotion and campaign products to templates during activity journal execution

 

You can carry out the following during activity processing:

·        Work with mandatory fields for templates

During activity journal execution, you can save the activity journal without having maintained the mandatory fields for templates.

Specifics of CRM Enterprise

Mandatory fields are not marked on the user interface.

You can set the activity to Completed even if you have not maintained mandatory fields. In this case, the activity journal and its mandatory fields are listed in the message log.

Specifics of CRM Mobile

Mandatory fields are marked with a star in the field column, but the field itself is not marked.

You cannot set the activity to Completed until you have maintained mandatory fields.

·        Work with mandatory templates for specific activity categories

During activity journal execution, you can save the activity without having maintained the mandatory template. However, you cannot set the activity to Completed until you have maintained the mandatory template.

Specifics of CRM Enterprise

Mandatory templates are displayed on the Activity Journals tab page as Activity Journals (mandatory).

Specifics of CRM Mobile

Mandatory templates are marked by a flag in the new Mandatory column in the template list.

·        Copy the contents of a previous activity journal to a current activity journal

Enter further details, such as the sales price, quantity, and status, after you have added products. In order to copy the content of an activity journal, the system takes the most recent business activity within the last three months, which uses the same template, has the status Completed, and for which the business partner is the same as the business partner of the current business activity. The system also checks whether the product to be added is already part of the current activity journal. In this case, the system displays a dialog box, in which you have the option of overwriting the existing products or leaving them as they are.

Note that the system does not allow duplicate products in activity journals, according to the default setting delivered with the standard. An exception is the pharmaceutical industry, in which duplicate products are allowed as default.

·        Display products from PPRs and listings and their default values in activity journals.

You can display products from PPRs or listings during activity journal execution when the following criteria are met:

¡        A relevant PPR or listing has been maintained for the relevant business partner

¡        The Use Listings or Use PPRs flag has been set during template creation

¡        The status of the business activity is not Completed

...

·        Display trade promotion and campaign products in activity journals

·        Work with alternative product IDs during activity processing

Specifics of CRM Mobile

You can also:

·        Indicate that you have changed a record in the activity journal

A new record in an activity journal has the status Confirmed. A record copied from a previous activity journal has the status Not Confirmed. and therefore you can set the status to Confirmed after having copied it. Confirmed records help you identify records that have been recently added.

·        Use a third-party shelf optimization tool to depict graphical views of your shelves in the store, and thus optimize their layout.  You can use shelf optimization in both activity journal creation and execution.

For more information, see Shelf Management.