Customizing "log activity" in HubSpot CRM

[grayson]

Hi HubSpot Development Team, 

I recommend revisiting the idea to customize log activity in HubSpot Sales. I would like my team to track "Direct Mail," and I've seen others asking about logging texts and in-app messaging. 

Thanks for considering!

Grayson 

[grayson]

Hi all a couple of years ago, we released 7 new logged activity options based on what we saw in this post. Could you please submit this short form if you still have a logged activity type that isn't being supported? Thank you!

[grayson]

Hi everyone, I'm going to update this idea as 'Idea Submitted'. To be fully transparent, the mistake was mine in interpreting these discussions as the need to customize Call & Meeting types - this feature was in beta and is now live (details below).

However, I understand that the need here is to identify, track and report on custom activities. I have made a note of this change and demand and will be taking this to Product, I know this is something they are aware of and reviewing but I do not have any further update at this time. To set expectations the next report I bring to the Product team will be early January. 

I apologize for the miscommunication here and will endeavor to get you an update on this idea. 

______________________________________________________________________

How to set custom call and meeting types:

How it works

• Navigate to Settings > Sales > Call & Meeting Types.

• Click “Enable Call and Meeting Types.”

• Add your types.

• Then, when you’re logging an activity from a record in your CRM, simply click “Select Call Type,” and choose your desired type.

What about reporting?

With the update, call/meeting type is now represented in two pre-built reports within the report library, and can also be used to build custom reports.

 

The two pre-built reports look like this, and live under "Prospecting:"

• Call and meeting totals (by type). Holistically, are there trends in the types of calls/meetings your team is having?

• Call and meeting leaderboard (by type). This report shows you the total number of meetings and calls each of your reps are having, by type. Did one rep have more pre-qualification calls, while another had more demo calls? Use this report to find out.

 

In addition to the pre-baked reports, Reporting Add-on or Sales Professional users can create custom reports using the Call/Meeting Type data.

[aottho]

Oh good lord. Another "it should be simple" hubspot feature request that has no movement for multiple years... discouraging. Please allocate some budget to development.

[PerrynOlson]

I'm surprised this request to log sending direct mail or notecard is still not available.

[AChrisanow]

HubSpot Support here, writting fora customer:

This would be incredibly usefull especially paired with filling the activity log via a workflow

[Iffah]

Just adding on behalf of a customer- It would be helpful to have more varied quote activity for deal records eg. when a quote's signatures are completed for example.

[adamhawes]

We desperately need reps to be able to log other types of activities - especially social would be great. They are targeted on this and quite frankly Hubspot is falling real short here. Looks like hundreds of people want this!

[DAllen72]

1) Need different type activities so I can log LinkedIn Messages (we dont  have navigator) or mail so we can track messages sent in LinkedIn just like email

[ProfAndreyK]

Another shock that we still (2022) cannot log in-app chat activity. What a shame!

[CNill]

"Being reviewed" since 2017??? 😞

[Anonymous]

Hello! Thank you all for adding your use cases. My team and I are working on some updates to start to solve some of these challenges.

We're all set for research participants for now. Thank you to everyone who reached out!

For folks looking to log LinkedIn outreach or direct/physical mail, my team and I are seeking some feedback on some ideas we have been working through. If you would be open to a quick feedback session, please send me a direct message and we can schedule some time to discuss further. Thank you in advance!

[DAllen72]

I would like to !

[JCarriou]

Text message option/tab

[BMounteer]

Please update activity logging. I'd like to log activities such as SMS messages, Enrollments and completions in our LMS, and direct mail efforts

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! Thank you all again for sharing your use cases with us and a special thank you to those who took the time to meet with us during our research.

Today we launched a Public Beta of 4 new default logged activity types: SMS, WhatsApp, LinkedIn message, and postal mail. These were the most common requests for customization that we saw coming up on this thread and in our research (about 85% of requests) so we decided to offer them as standard options without the need for building them out yourselves.

If you are interested in opting your portal into this new functionality, you can find more information and opt-in via the steps outlined in this documentation. We also recently launched the ability to configure which activity buttons appear on your records in the CRM to help give you easier access to these new options. That configuration is live to all portals now.

There will be an in-app survey that will fire after logging 5 new activities for you to share your feedback on this new functionality but also feel free to DM me on the community with any feedback you may have! 

I am going to move the status of this post to "Not Currently Planned" as I know the subject of the post is about adding custom logged activity options. While we don't have anything planned in the immediate future for activity customization, we will continue to monitor this post for feedback on customization and take that into account when prioritizing our roadmap. Thank you again and I hope you enjoy this new functionality!

[GuyTaylor]

@Anonymous I'm really enjoying this beta feature! Very nice job.

Question: Can we access these new logged activity types via API?

Many thanks,
Guy

[Anonymous]

Glad to hear you are enjoying the Beta, @GuyTaylor! Re: APIs, I am working with our developer reltions team currently so hopefully we will have some updates there soon. Are there any activities in particular that you wish to access via API?

[GuyTaylor]

@Anonymous Creating all of the 4 default logged activites via API would be nice, but definitely the LinkedIn type would be most useful for me personally.

[JonathanElkin]

Just seen this was added: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/manually-log-a-call-email-or-meeting-on-a-record

1) Would prefer to have SMS and WhatsApp grouped under "Log a Text Message", and then add in it's place "Log an Instant Message" (e.g. Skype)

2) Please can the options of 'Inbound' and 'Outbound' be added to these new activity types so we can report based on inbound interaction

[DarrenScottUK]

Within the activity buttons for a contact it would be useful for admins to be able to crreate their own custom buttons as they may have different kinds of activity to log. i.e. a webchat with a customer. 

[ronkchang]

Hi Hubspot,

I'm so glad you launched ways to track new activities. Would it be hard to allow users to create their own custom activities? We do a lot of our partnerships with influencers and most of the activity we're trying to log is on Instagram and TikTok Direct Messages. It would be great to have both Instagram and TikTok DM added as specific activities you could add, or perhaps have a catch-all "Social Media Direct Message" option for us to track. There will always be a new social media platform so giving us the ability to customize our own activity logs may be the easiest way to implement this in the long term. Any thoughts on that?

We appreciate all the hardwork the Hubspot team has done to create an exceptional CRM and productivity tool.

Best,

Ron

[V-Marketer]

@roisinkirby  Yes! I agree with @JasonC and others here. The LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration is very, very limited. Our BD team does a lot of outreach and communication on LI and it is not captured effectively when they execute from Sales Nav vs. from within HS. In Sales Nav we can easily execute connection requests by going down a list very easily. Performing this in HS is very time-consuming and not efficient at all.  

At a minimum, we would like to bulk-edit/add LinkedIn activity (connection request sent, connected, messaged, etc.), since the Sales Nav to HS integration is limited.

Ultimately we would like the functionality mentioned above along with the ability to add our own custom activity tracking with bulk editing for all activity types.