Reasons to Schedule Recurring Activities

Recurring activities (or activity series) can be a valuable tool for marketers. This article highlights some of the reasons that you should consider creating recurring activities to manage relations with your accounts and contacts.

Less Time Creating Activities

For users that don't schedule recurring activities, a large part of their time in Edge is spent creating individual activities, whether Events or To Do's.  Many of these activities are with referral sources that are called upon on a frequent basis (i.e. weekly, bi-weekly, etc.). A recurring activity series takes about the same amount of time to schedule as a single activity. If 75% of your activities are recurring events or To Do's that's 75% less time creating activities, allowing you to focus on adding notes and moving on to the next event or To Do.

Prioritizing Accounts

Placing recurring activities on your calendar for a high-touch referral source will ensure that the referral source stays on your radar. If a facility or referral source needs to be seen two or three times per week, a recurring activity can be setup to match that frequency, ensuring that it doesn't fall off your radar as other calls and tasks come up. This keeps your priority accounts visible, and ensures that you keep them in mind as you plan your day or week.

Consistent Presence

Using an activity series to schedule your time at an office or facility can help create a regular pattern in which your referral sources will know that that you will be making yourself available. Often, there are best times of the day, or days of the week, to catch your referral sources at a time when you can talk to them, and strategically placing your recurring activities at those times will ensure that you're connecting with the right contacts when you call them or stop by.

Historical Call/Visit Notes on Contact Details

To see notes associated to a contact or facility before a call or visit, you can visit the Contact or Facility record and look at historical notes by clicking on the Contact/Facility link in the activity, then click on the Notes tab. This means leaving the activity you're looking at, and navigating to another page in the web or mobile application to look at your notes surrounding this contact or facility. 

Event Series Tips

  • Nothing is set in stone. Individual Events or To Do's that are part of an activity series can be edited or deleted. This allows you to move (day and/or time) of an activity without impacting the overall activity series.

  • Get started on the web. As mentioned in the Marketer Quick Start Guide, we suggest that users initially build their calendars out the web as they are setting up the foundation of their Trella Health Edge account. 1)Add providers & facilities to your Book of Business  2)Associate referral source contacts to providers & facilities  3)Add activity series

  • Add the visit frequency to the activity title field. We suggest adding the frequency to the activity title field of the Event or To Do. On the web or mobile apps, this will provide quick insight into how often you're visiting the facility without needing to dive into the activity details.

  • Set a consistent End Date for all series. As each activity series is created, an End Date must be added. Entering a consistent end date into each series will make the end of all series very visible as your calendar will suddenly become blank after a particular day. When end dates differ, activities can drop off your calendar and off your radar. It's also important that the end of the activity series is not 2 years down the road. The end of an activity series is a great time to analyze the ROI of your time with each facility and adjust your visit or call frequency. While some referral sources will remain consistent, new referral sources may be added to your book of business, and they may need more attention than initially thought. Periodically adjusting your calendar based on the ROI of referrals or orders from a contact/facility will ensure that you're spending your time in front of or talking to the right people.