Best Practices for Setting Up a Recurring Activity Series

When building out your Trella Health calendar, setting up recurring activity series is a good way to prioritize your accounts and spend less time creating each event from scratch every day. There are a number of other great reasons to schedule recurring activities 

When it comes to setting up recurring activities there are some best practices and tips to keep in mind to ensure they are beneficial and not just clogging up your calendar.

1.) Ensure you use a process of Association when setting up your recurring events.

When setting up your recurring activity series its recommended that you utilize the Associate functionality to associate "referral source contacts with providers and/or facilities to create an over-arching account. Establishing associations creates a better activity reporting environment by encouraging the practice of including the referral source contact and/or the provider/facility on the activity. Once it’s set up correctly, you don’t have to worry about it again. When you are completing the activity, whether it's an Event or To Do, contacts/facilities can be removed or added as needed.  Documentation is more likely to be added to both the referral source and the ordering provider/facility if you have associated the two(or three)and all are included on the recurring activity.

2.) Set up recurring events for your key accounts

Prioritize your accounts and set up recurring activities for your key accounts, any accounts you want to maintain a consistent presence, or have a set meeting date and time. Setting up a recurring activity series for every single account you own may not be realistic or practical depending on your number of assigned accounts. Also, don’t get caught up in the date/time on recurring events – they are a placeholder and can be easily moved to another date and time, if needed.

3.) Set up your recurring events to end on the same date

An activity series can span an indefinite period of time.  Set your recurring end date to the same date, ie: the end of the year, or the end of the quarter. This will avoid your series ending and dropping off the calendar. You can also add in the end date in your activity title for a visible cue on when the series is ending. An activity series end date is editable and can always be extended if needed.

4.) Subjects matter

Activity subject matter, that is. Use the Recurring activity title field to be your guide on your calendar. Having tens of “Weekly Meetings” or “Sales Calls” does not help you with the plan for your day. Enter the account name and frequency of the recurring series to easily see where you are going to next. Note the examples below: 

5.) Utilize the visibility of historical visit notes to your advantage

When you go into a recurring activity on your calendar, and click into the contact or facility link, you will be able to see the prior visit notes in that series by clicking on the Notes tab. This is a great way to determine the last time you interacted with that account and what transpired. Remembering the details of the last conversation you had with them, what information they’ve taken the time to share with you is key to good customer service.

In this video you will learn how to:

• Create a recurring Activity-Event or To do   
• Recognize a recurring activity by the icon
• Mark an activity complete