Business Activity Manager

The Business Activity Manager is a management window in Acctivate that allows users to filter and process batches of Business Activities in one central location. The Business Activity Manager can be configured to group Activities together based on user defined criteria.

The Business Activity Manager can be accessed by going to Activities → Business Activity Manager or by clicking the Activity Manager icon on the Icon bar.

Activity Manager Bars

The Business Activity Manager is made up of Bars, which are a collection of Buttons. To view the bars, click the View... button at the top of the Activity Manager window.

The Business Activity Manager includes three default bars:

My Activities: This bar shows a buttons which includes Activities assigned to the current user and another button for Activities that are unassigned.
Activity Types: This bar shows a collection of buttons which group Activities based on Activity Type.
Activity Statuses: This bar shows a collection of buttons which group Activities based on Activity Status.

Custom bars can be created to meet your needs. See Configuring the Manager Windows.

Activity Manager Buttons

Once you've selected an Activity Manager bar you will see a collection of buttons. A button is a group of Activities that meet a specific criterion.

A button can display up to three different pieces of information:

Button name: The button's name will display prominently and provide a description of the Activities included in the Button. For example, "All Types" includes all open Activities.
Amounts: A dollar amount can be displayed in the bottom left corner of the button. The dollar amount displayed is a sum of an amount field for all the Activities included in this button. This amount could refer to one of the following amounts:
- Estimated Amount: The sum of the Est Amt field in the Enter Business Activity window for all Activities.
- Unbilled Time Materials: The total unbilled Time and Materials amount.
- Time Materials: The total Time and Materials amount.
Activity Count: The number in the bottom right of the button indicates the number of Activities that are included in the button.

Activity Manager Columns

When viewing a Button columns of data will appear. The Activity Manager only shows header level Business Activity information and summary date, it does not show any detail/line level information such as Time and Material entries, notes, emails, etc.

The Due Date column is the Promised Date if provided, otherwise it's the Requested Date. This date will be color coded based on the date in relation to today:

Green indicates that the date is 8 or more days in the future.
Orange indicates that the date is due in the next 7 days.
Red indicates that the date is one or more days overdue.

Filtering, Grouping, and Sorting

While each button is pre-configured to show Activities that meet certain criterion, you can use the Filter button to apply additional filtering to a button.

When you click the Filter button, a new window will appear. The bottom of the Filter window will include a description of the current button's configuration. In the Filter window, use the filter editor to add to the existing button filters.

These additional filters will remain in effect until you close the Business Activity Manager or click the "X" button next to the filter button (when the "X" button is a dark gray it means there are additional filters in place).

When the Find panel is enabled (View → Find Panel or Ctrl+F), type in text to search and further filter the grid results. Use Ctrl+F to place the cursor in the Find field. To hide the Find panel, uncheck it from the View menu.

When the Grouping panel is enabled (View → Grouping Panel or Ctrl+G), drag columns from the grid to the Grouping panel to group the grid by the field. Multiple levels of grouping are supported. To hide the Group panel, uncheck it from the View menu.

Sort by a single column by clicking the column header. Click the column header again to change the sort direction. Multi-column sorting can be achieved by holding shift while clicking on other column headers.

Actions

Besides presenting Business Activities for easy review, the Business Activity Manager allows you to perform various actions on selected Activities. Actions include assigning Activities, changing the Priority and Status, printing, emailing, and adding notes. To perform an action:

Open the Business Activity Manager.
Select the appropriate Bar and Button.
Check off one or more Activity.
Click Action... to view a list of Actions and select one.

Actions

Assign Activities: Assigns the Activity to the selected user.
Change Priority: Changes the Priority to the selected Priority.
Change Status: Changes the Status to the selected Status.
Print Activity: Prints the Business Activity form.
Email Contacts: Creates an email to the email address associated with the Activity's Primary Related Item.
Email Activities: Creates an email to the email address associated with the Activity's Primary Related Item and attaches the Business Activity form as an attachment.
Create Note: Opens the Note window to allow adding a note. If multiple Activities are selected, the same note will be added to all the selected Activities.

The action will apply to the selected Activities if they are eligible. For example, if you select a range of Activities and go to Action...→ Change Status and select a status, the Activities that are eligible to change to that status, based on their Type, will be updated.

After the action is completed, the selected Activities remain selected. This allows you to perform additional actions on the selected Activities. However, if the action caused some or all the Activities to move to a new button, you must click on that button in order to perform a secondary action. Or to put it another way, actions only apply to the Activities selected in the button which is currently being viewed.

Tip

There are a few different ways to select rows:

Check off all rows: Click the checkbox column's header to select all the rows in the current button.

Check off a range of rows: Click anywhere in a row, then hold the down the shift key while clicking on a row above or below the first row. The first and last rows clicked and all rows between will be checked off.

Check off a group of rows: Enable the Group panel (Ctrl+G) and then drag a column header to the panel to group by that field. Once rows are grouped, you can click the checkbox in the group section to check off all rows in the group.

Check off rows using a USB scanner: You can also check off records in the current button using a USB scanner configured with a carriage return/line feed (Enter key) suffix.

Click the Check by ID button on the toolbar.
In the Check Activities window, scan a barcoded Business Activity number to select and check off the row.
Repeat, scanning additional barcodes.

Using the spacebar: Click a checkbox to select it, then use the up/down arrows on your keyboard to move to another checkbox and press the spacebar to check the checkbox.

Button Definitions

The following table contains the definitions of the default Business Activity Manager bars and buttons.

Bar	Button	Definition	Amount
Activity Statuses	Open Statuses	Includes all open Business Activities.	The total estimated amount.
Activity Statuses	(Your other open Statuses)	A button will be created for all additional open Statuses that have been configured	The total estimated amount.
Activity Types	All Types	Includes all open Business Activities.	The total estimated amount.
Activity Types	(Your other open Types)	A button will be created for all additional open Types that have been configured	The total estimated amount.
My Activities	Assigned To Me	Includes all open Business Activities assigned the logged in User.	The total estimated amount.
My Activities	Unassigned	Includes all open Business Activities that are unassigned.	The total estimated amount.