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Siebel Life Sciences Guide > Planning Calls > End-User Procedures >

Creating Activities

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End users use general activities to manage their own time, keep their manager informed of their workload, and track their expenses. Managers can also create general activities and assign them to members of their teams. The kinds of activities that end users can create in Siebel Life Sciences include:

General. Used to track non-call and non-meeting tasks such as to-do items, personal events, and correspondence. Users can create an alert for a general activity to remind them of significant tasks or events.
Contact call. Used to track a planned or past call activity with a contact. Users can record details about contact calls such as the products detailed, the samples and promotional items dropped, and decision issues discussed. Before users can record details about a contact call, they must set up their personal lists. For more information, see Creating a Personal List.
Account call. Used to track a planned or past call activity at an account. Users can record products detailed, attendees, promotional items dropped, and decision issues discussed. For more information, see Recording Calls.
Meeting. Used to track meetings, such as a "lunch-and-learn" or a symposium, designed to increase sales through product awareness. A meeting typically involves one or more speakers who give presentations in support of one or more products. For more information, see Setting Up a Meeting.
Time off territory. Used to track blocks of time that users spend on activities not directly associated with an account or contact. Examples of time off territory can include field training sessions, national sales meetings, vacations, or personal activities such as doctor's appointments. For more information on working with time off territory activities, see Tracking Time Off Territory.
MedEd activity. Used to track and plan medical education events such as a "lunch-and-learn" meetings or seminars. A MedEd event is similar to a meeting activity, but offers planning, budgeting, and cost aggregation functionality. MedEd activities are only associated with the separate Siebel MedEd module. For more information, see Managing MedEd Events.
Subject activities. Used to track subject activities for a protocol. Subject activities are generated by applying the visit template based on the screening or enrollment date. Visit activities can also be created for a non-scheduled visit. For more information, see Adding a Subject and Setting Up Visits and Visit Activities.
Clinical protocol site activities. Used to track the activities associated with initiating the protocol sites, for example, collecting the essential documents. For more information, see Creating Site Activity Plans.
Checklist activities. Used to provide a checklist for clinical research associates (CRAs) to check activities associated with visiting a protocol site. Once a trip report record has been created, checklist activities are generated by selecting a trip report template. Checklist activities specific to a trip report can also be added to a trip report from the Trip Report Details view. For more information, see Creating a Trip Report Before a Site Visit.
Follow-up activities. Used to record follow-up issues for a trip report. Users can add a follow-up activity to a trip report from the Trip Report Details view. Only the follow-up activities with open status are listed in a Follow-up Activities report generated from the Reports menu. For more information, see Creating a Trip Report Before a Site Visit.
Project Activities. Used to track activities associated with clinical projects. These activities appear in the Projects screen and the Activities screen and can be created by project activity templates and by importing from Microsoft Project files. For more information, see Adding Activities and Tasks to a Project.

For more general information on activities, see Understanding Activities and the business scenario Users Create Activities.

NOTE:  End users also use the Activities screen to record and submit details of contact and account calls. For more information, see Recording Calls.

Adding a General Activity

End users use general activities to manage their own time, to keep their manager informed of their workload, and to track their expenses. Managers can also create general activities and assign them to members of their teams.

To add a general activity

Navigate to the Activities screen.
From the Show drop-down list, select My Activities.
Click the More Info view tab.
In the More Info form, add a record and complete the necessary fields.

Some of the fields in the Activities record are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
Change Request #	The change request with which the activity is associated, if relevant.
Description	A description of this activity.
Duration	The length of time, in minutes, that you expect the activity to take.
Employees	Delegate the activity to someone else. Select the appropriate employee and click OK. If you delegate an activity this way, the activity appears in the My Delegated Activities view.
Expense	Select this field to include the activity in an expense report generated by the Siebel Expenses module. For information on expense reports, see Online Help.
Suppress Calendar	Selecting this field causes the activity to not appear in Calendar views.
Type	The type of activity. If you select Alert, the activity appears in the My Alerts view. The values displayed in this drop-down list depend on the value of the Activity field. For example, the activity types that you can select for a contact call are different from those that you can select for a general activity.

Creating a General Activity in the Calendar

The views in the Calendar screen provide visual representations of a user's scheduled activities, or appointments; that is, activities with a start time. For instance, in the My Daily view, users can see a particular day's agenda, their unscheduled activities, or a to-do list. To appear in the Calendar views, all activities must have a start time.

To create a general activity in the Calendar view

Navigate to the Calendar screen.
From the Show drop-down list, select My Calendar.

The My Daily Calendar view appears, displaying the current date.

Select one of the view tabs described in the following table:

View tab	Description
My Daily	Shows activities for the day and allows users to create general activities.
My Weekly	Shows scheduled activities for the week in a calendar grid and allows users to create general activities.
My Monthly	Shows scheduled activities for the month in a calendar grid or list format and allows you to create general activities.

Navigate to the day on which you want to schedule a general activity and add a record.

NOTE:  If you are performing this procedure from the My Weekly view or the My Monthly view, you must first select the day on which you want to schedule the appointment.

In the Calendar Detail form, click the show more button and complete the necessary fields.

NOTE:  This procedure describes how to create a general activity. For more information on creating a call in the Calendar, see To schedule a contact call in the Calendar and To schedule an account call in the Calendar.

Some of the fields in a Calendar Detail record are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
Account	Complete this field if the activity is related to a particular account. The value of this field cannot be modified for Contact Call activities.
Alarm	Select this field to have an alarm remind you of the appointment. A setting on the Calendar tab of the Options dialog box determines how many minutes before the appointment the alarm will ring.
Contacts	Complete this field if the activity is related to a particular contact.
Cost Estimate	Enter a cost to include the call in an expense report generated by the Siebel Expenses module.
Duration	This value is based on the duration preset on the Calendar tab of the Options dialog box. When you change the duration, the end time is automatically updated.
Employees	The employees assigned to this activity. Select an employee from the Employees dialog box if the activity is assigned to particular employees.
Expense	Select this field to include the activity in an expense report generated by the Siebel Expenses module. For information on expense reports, see Online Help.
Frequency	Select a frequency of your repeating appointment; Weekly is the default.
Opportunity	Complete this field if the activity is related to a particular opportunity. If the opportunity is for a different account than the one listed in the Account field, the account field will be updated automatically. The value of this field cannot be modified for Contact Call activities.
Planned Completion	This value is based on the duration preset on the Calendar tab of the Options dialog box. When you change the end time, the duration is automatically updated.
Planned Start	If you started from the Daily Calendar view, this date reflects the time selected when you created the new appointment. If you started from the Weekly Calendar or Monthly Calendar view, the first time slot of the day (set on the Calendar tab of the Options dialog box) is supplied.
Repeat	Select this field to have this appointment repeat at regular intervals in the future.
Type	The type of activity. The default value is Other. If you select Alert, the activity appears in the My Alerts view. The values displayed in this drop-down list depend on the kind of activity; that is, a contact call will display different values for this field than you see for a general activity.
Until	The end date of a repeating appointment. If you do not select a value, 12 more appointments will be scheduled. The value of this field cannot be modified for Contact Call or Account Call activities.

Click Save This One.

The new appointment appears in the Calendar view.

NOTE:  From the My Daily view tab, you can also create an activity in the Activities list by right-clicking and choosing New Record. The Activities list only shows an activity if the Start Time field of the activity is blank. Once you give the activity a start time and refresh the view, the activity appears in the Daily Agenda.

To print the current Calendar view, click Print.
To edit an existing activity, drill-down on the activity description hyperlink.

The Calendar Detail form appears.

To create specialized activities in the Calendar view

Click New Contact Call to schedule a call to a contact.
Click New Acct Call to schedule a call to an account.
Click New Meeting to schedule a meeting and to list activities, meeting speakers and invitees.

Users who work as part of a team, may find it useful to share access to their calendar.

To give other users access to your calendar

Navigate to the Calendar screen.
From the Show drop-down list, select Calendar Access List.
In the Calendar Access list, add a record.
In the Add Employees dialog box, select one or more employees and click OK.

The employee's name and login name appear in the Calendar Access list.

To give an employee the ability to modify your calendar items, click the Allow Updates field.

Setting Up a Meeting

Use the Meetings subviews of the Activities screen to manage information about activities, speakers, and invitees associated with meetings. Meetings themselves are activities that appear in the My Activities view. The activities that a user adds for a meeting are child records of the meeting and are not displayed in the Activities list in the My Activities view; they appear only in the Meeting Activities view and in the Calendar views.

NOTE:  A MedEd event is similar to a meeting activity, but offers planning, budgeting, and cost aggregation functionality. MedEd activities are only associated with the separate Siebel MedEd module. For more information, see Managing MedEd Events.

Setting up a meeting involves the following steps:

Add a new meeting record. For more information, see To add a meeting.

NOTE:  Users can also add a meeting by clicking the New Meeting button in the Activities list of the My Activities view.

Add activities for the meeting. For more information, see To add a meeting activity.
Add speakers for the meeting. For more information, see To add a meeting speaker.
Add invitees for the meeting. For more information, see To add a meeting invitee.

To add a meeting

Navigate to the Activities screen.
From the Show drop-down list, My Activities.
In the Activities list, click New Meeting.

The Meetings form appears.

In the Meetings form, complete the necessary fields.

Some of the fields in the Meetings record are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
Account	The account associated with this meeting. Select an account from the Pick Account dialog box. The Location and Site fields are automatically filled based on the account you specify.
Cost	The application calculates this field based on costs entered for meeting activities. For more information, see To add a meeting activity. The application calculates this field when you click the Distribute Costs button in the Meeting Invitees view and updates it each time you click the Distribute Costs button again. For more information, see To add a meeting invitee.
Name	The name of this meeting.
Start Date	The application automatically populates this field with the date and time that the record was created. If needed, make additional changes.
Status	The choices in this drop-down list are configured by using the EVENT_STATUS type in the List of Values. This field is hard-coded so that its value cannot be set to Submitted to avoid interference with other activity types, such as contact calls and account calls that are based on the same class of Siebel business components.

Add information about activities, speakers, and invitees, as described in the following procedures.

To add a meeting activity

Navigate to the Activities screen.
From the Show drop-down list, select My Activities.
In the Activities list, do one of the following:
Create a new meeting. For more information, see To add a meeting.
Select an existing meeting and then drill-down on the Activity field.

The Meetings form appears.

Click the Meeting Activities view tab.
In the Meeting Activities list, add a record and complete the necessary fields.

Some of the fields in the Meeting Activities record are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
Activity	The type activity associated with this meeting.
Cost	Enter the cost related to this activity, if applicable. This information is used to distribute meeting costs across attendees. For more information, see To add a meeting invitee.

Add information about speakers and invitees, as described in the following procedures.

NOTE:  Meetings are activities that appear in the My Activities view. However, activities that you add to a meeting are child records of the meeting. These records only appear in the Meeting Activities tab view and as activities in the Calendar views.

To add a meeting speaker

Navigate to the Activities screen.
From the Show drop-down list, select My Activities.
In the Activities list, do one of the following:
Create a new meeting. For more information, see To add a meeting.
Select an existing meeting and then drill-down on the Activity field.

The Meetings form appears.

Click the Meeting Speakers view tab.
In the Meeting Speakers list, add a record.

The Add Speakers dialog box appears.

In the Add Speakers dialog box:
If no contacts appear, click All Contacts.
To only display contacts affiliated with the selected account, click Affiliated Contacts.
Select those contacts you want to add as speakers for the meeting and click OK.

New records for the selected contacts are added to the Speakers list.

Add information about invitees, as described in the following procedure.

To add a meeting invitee

Navigate to the Activities screen.
From the Show drop-down list, select My Activities.
In the Activities list, do one of the following:
Create a new meeting. For more information, see To add a meeting.
Select an existing meeting and then drill-down on the Activity field.

The Meetings form appears.

Click the Meeting Invitees view tab.
In the Meeting Invitees list, add a record.

The Add Invitees dialog box appears.

In the Add Invitees dialog box:
Click Affiliated Contacts to display only contacts affiliated with the selected account. For more information, see Indicating an Affiliation Between an Account and a Contact.
Click All Contacts, if no contacts appear.
Select those contacts you want to add as invitees for the meeting and click OK.

New records for the selected contacts are added to the Speakers list.

The application calculates the value of the Cost field the Meeting Invitees list based on values entered in Cost field of the Meeting Activities list. It then distributes the costs across all invitees whose Invitee Status field is set to Attended.

To update the Cost field in the Meeting Invitees list

Click the Meeting Activities view tab.
In the Meeting Activities list, record the costs associated with each meeting activity in the Cost field.
To distribute the meeting costs across those individuals who attended the meeting, click the Meeting Invitees view tab.
In the Meeting Invitees list, update the Invitee Status for each invitee. Selecting the status Attended includes the selected invitee in the count of contacts for distribution of meeting costs.
Click Distribute Costs.

As you add costs and attendees to the meeting, repeat the previous steps as many times as needed.

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