About activities

An activity is associated with an individual and may be used to store notes, send an email or text, or as part of the retention module among other uses. An activity is a collection of one or more workflows so one activity can launch multiple tasks. For example the same activity could email a potential applicant and place a note for the admissions counselor to call them in a week.

Prerequisites

• Create activity tracking members. Members categorize and control access to workflows. For example you may have a member for the Registrar, another for Billing and another for Student Life.

Required permissions

Webinar recording: Creating workflows and activities

Before you begin

Activities comprise workflows, which execute what you’re trying to accomplish, whether it’s to record a note, send an email or trigger a reminder.

Some people prefer to create workflows first and then attach them to the activity. This approach is particularly effective if you’re using the same workflow across multiple activities. For example, perhaps when people interested in touring campus call you have two possible types of prospects. One type is looking for undergraduate programs while the other is interested in graduate programs. You decided to create two activities: one for each group so you can track the interest by undergrad vs. grad. However, both activities will trigger the same workflow that sends the caller an email about how to tour campus. In this case, you might want to create the workflow first and then attach it to both activities.

In other situations, you may wish to create the activity and workflow all in one transaction. This approach is particularly effective if you the activity and workflow are essentially the same and the activity contains only one workflow. For example, you’re creating a new activity that records a student passed a licensure exam. The activity simply holds one workflow that records this information and nothing else is recorded or triggered.

Create activity

1. Go to All Users > Activity Tracking Templates.

2. In Member select a member. Members let you categorize activities and control access.
   
   

   Open

   

3. In Template Name enter a name for the activity, which people will see when they associate this activity with a person in Campus Cafe. The name can’t be changed once the activity is saved.

   Open

   

4. Click Add.

5. If you’ve already created workflows this activity will trigger, than uncheck Auto-create Workflow. If you want to create a workflow at the same time you’re creating the activity, leave this selected.
   
   

6. In Description enter text about the activity. For example, if this activity triggers follow up from a campus visit you might enter Campus Visit Followup.
   
   

7. Active: Leave as – choose one – to allow the activity to be used. Selecting Inactive won’t allow the activity to be assigned but won’t affect activities assigned in the past.

8. If you’re using the activity to record a response to a question on an inquiry or admissions form, in Admissions Portal Request Trigger select the question. You must first create the question and add it to an admissions form.
   
   

9. When you go to associate an activity with an individual, you can click the magnifying glass to see all activities or, for those activities with Quick Comment selected (checked), you can select the activity from the Comment menu. If you frequently use this activity, this can save your users time. Also when adding an activity from the Quick Comment menu, the activity’s associated workflow’s email content automatically shows. For this to work, the workflow must be set with the Mode of Email Sent on Add.
   
   

    

10. Is Queueable: Select (check) to allow template to be assigned to a queue result which are when you want one activity to trigger another. For example, an admissions recruiter calls an applicant who doesn’t answer. When the recruiter indicates there’s no answer, you want Campus Cafe to automatically place another another activity to remind them to call the applicant in three days.
    
    

11. Constraints: By configuring admissions forms, database triggers or queue results, you can tell Campus Cafe to automatically assign activities when something occurs. By setting constraints you can limit when this specific activity is assigned. For example, you tell Campus Cafe to trigger a Campus Visit Invite activity when an admissions application is submitted. However, you only want it to be emailed if the applicant applied to journalism or political science because only those majors offer admissions tours. By adding a constraint, you can control - or limit - this activity to just those majors.

    • The leftmost menu represents the table (record) and field. Think of this as the type of data. In our example, major. The Campus Cafe table that stores applied major is ADMAST. The field is APPLIED_FOR_MAJOR.
      
      

    • The middle menu is the operator like equal to, like, greater than or in. In our example, we’ll select IN because we want the activity to be assigned if the applicant selects either journalism or political science.
      
      

    • The far right box contains our criteria or what the field must be. In our example, we’ll input our major codes for journalism and political science and separate them with a comma.
      
      

       

12. Using additional constraints you can further limit who the activity will automatically be assigned to. It’s important to know that all constraints must be true. Campus Cafe essentially adds an AND at the end of each constraint. For example, if your first constraint was applied for majors journalism or political science and then you added a constraint that the ADMAST.UNDERGRADGPA must be greater than 2.5, the only applicants who would automatically receive this activity would be those who are in journalism or political science (constraint 1) and who reported a GPA of 2.5 or higher (constraint 2).

13. Your next steps depend on if you selected (checked) Auto-create Workflow. If you did, click Save and see directions below titled If you selected Auto-create Workflow.
    If you didn’t select Auto-create Workflow you need to assign previously created workflows to the activity. See directions below titled If you didn’t select Auto-create Workflow.

If you selected Auto-create Workflow

Campus Cafe automatically creates a workflow tied to this activity.

1. Scroll down to see the newly created workflow.
   
   

2. You can adjust how the workflow behaves - such as configuring it to send an email - by clicking the paper and pencil. For directions on how to configure a workflow, see the workflow documentation.
   
   

If you didn’t select Auto-create Workflow

You need to tell Campus Cafe which workflow or workflows are associated with this activity. You’ll add one previously created workflow at a time.

1. Scroll down until you see Work Flow Name and select your previously created workflow.
   
   

2. In Unique Group Order enter a number that specifies the order of the workflow when you have multiple workflows assigned to an activity. For example, 1 would be the first workflow, 2 the second, etc.
   
   

3. In Detail Description enter text about the workflow.

4. Optionally choose how the workflow behaves.

   • Prohibit Work Flow Repeat: Restrict the workflow to applying once per semester or once ever. For example, ensure that students only receive a FERPA notice once per semester.

   • Assigned To ID#: Assign the workflow to a specific person. For example, all workflows inquiring about visiting campus are assigned to your tour coordinator for scheduling.

   • Days Out: The due date will be set to the day the activity is assigned plus the number of days here. For example, remind your tour coordinator follow up is required within a week.

   • Optional Default Comment #1 Text: Text will appear in the first comment box of the workflow.

   • Optional URL: A web link to associate with the workflow; if the workflow appears in the applicant or document portal, the link will display in the portal.

   • Optional Default Notes: The content here will appear automatically in the activity's long comment box when the activity is associated with an individual.

5. Click Save. To add an additional workflow click Add Workflow and repeat steps 1-4. When associated with an individual, the activity will trigger all these workflows.