Start Using Tasks

Use Tasks in Lightning Experience to Boost Sales Productivity

General Guidelines

• If a task is created when you send an email, validation and workflow rules for that task aren’t triggered.
• Due dates are displayed in the time zone you’ve selected in your personal settings.
• If your organization has enabled Email-to-Case or On-Demand Email-to-Case, some tasks are associated with Email-to-Case or On-Demand Email-to-Case emails. To view the associated email, click the link at the top of the task.
• Tasks that are emails received via Email to Salesforce or Salesforce for Outlook sometimes display a banner that links to the My Unresolved Items page. Use this page to assign any unassociated emails to related Salesforce records.
• Attachments are displayed on the task detail page only, not on the detail page for other records that the task is related to. If you don’t see the Attachments related list on the task detail page, ask your Salesforce admin to add it to the task page layout.
• On cases, feeds don’t include email tasks or call logging tasks.
• Predefined subjects aren’t available unless you turn off the Show simpler New Task form on mobile setting.
• If Shared Activities isn’t enabled, custom reports based on activity relationships don’t include event organizers along with invitees. Custom reports also don’t show events to which no one has been invited.
• If Shared Activities is enabled
  • You can relate a task to up to 50 contacts or one lead using the Name field.
  • You can’t relate multiple contacts to a recurring task series.
  • In Salesforce Classic, you can’t relate multiple contacts to a task assigned to multiple users.
• The My Tasks view on today’s task card shows tasks that either have no due date or are overdue for fewer than 30 days. Anything overdue for more than 30 days is shown only in the Overdue filter.

  Tasks overdue for more than 30 days obscure a user's focus from what they must accomplish next. Showing only tasks that are due within a month also improves the load time of the My Tasks view.

• You can eliminate a contact or a record on a task without deleting the entire task. For example, suppose that a task is related to Contact A and Contact B, and you want to relate it only to Contact A. Rather than deleting the task, remove Contact B from the Name field.
• If a user has read-only access for the Related To field and they create a task from a record’s activity list, the task isn’t related to the parent record. Users need edit access for the Related To field in order to relate tasks to record objects.
• Change the status of Task from either the task record or the activity timeline. To open a completed task from the activity timeline, select to change the status and choose an open status. To reopen a completed task from the task record, hover of the Completed button, select Reopen, and select an open status.
• Action overrides for viewing tasks aren't supported when using split view in Standard Lightning apps

Where to Track Tasks

• Tasks tab—Shows task list views, including tasks due today, all your open tasks, overdue tasks, and tasks recently completed.
• Home page—A filterable compact view of up to five tasks.
• Records—To view and edit tasks, use the activity timeline in Lightning Experience or the activity related lists in Salesforce Classic.
• Kanban view for Opportunities—Cards show alerts when a task is overdue or when no open activities exist on an opportunity.
• Activities reports—View tasks related to certain records and tasks assigned to people below you in the Salesforce role hierarchy.
• List views—Tasks are displayed in activities list views and calendar views.
• Chatter—Task updates appear in the feed for related records. Your Salesforce admin can specify whether you can use Chatter to create tasks for different types of records. For example, some people can view but not create tasks in the feeds for accounts that they have access to.
• Calendar

How Task Assignment Works

• Tasks can only have one owner at a time. If you reassign the task to someone else, it no longer appears in your task list, unless the person is below you in the role hierarchy. In that case, you see the task in the Delegated view in your task list.
• By default, a task is assigned to the person who creates it. You can assign independent copies of a new task to multiple people, when you create the task.
• Anyone can reassign a task to a coworker. Managers in the role hierarchy can view tasks that they’ve assigned to people below them in the role hierarchy. They can also use reports to view tasks of people below them in the role hierarchy, but not to edit them.
• In Salesforce Classic, we can send an email notification when someone creates or assigns a task, depending on your organization’s settings.
• Emails, notifications, and reminders are sent about task assignments only after the task is reassigned from a tasks queue to a specific user.
• In Lightning Experience, there aren’t options to send an email when you assign a task or receive an email when you receive a task. However, depending on your org’s settings, there are email notifications for delegated tasks.