Custom Activities

Custom Activities allow you to create a custom action type to record a specific type of activity. The most common examples include forms filled in by prospects, support tickets, call outcomes, invoice/payment items, and various structured notes such as call playbooks.

In our examples below, we'll use a Sales Qualifying Call Custom Activity for reference.

Custom Activities behave like any other default activity (email, SMS, call, note) - you can create, edit, search/filter, and report on them. You can also add them via our API or Zapier if you want to integrate Close with other services (e.g., automatically create an Inbound Form custom activity when a prospect fills out a form).

Creating a Custom Activity Type

Before creating an instance of a custom activity on a lead page, we have to define its structure by using Custom Activity Type. Common examples of types are:

• Intercom ticket

• Sales Qualifying Call

• Stripe invoice

• NPS Feedback

To create a new Custom Activity Type, go to Settings > Custom Activities > + New Custom Activity, give it a name, and click Save.

Tnable Restrict Editing which will prevent other users from adding/editing/deleting instances of this type - for example, you'd want to restrict Sales Qualifying Call activity to Sales Team only. To control who can add/edit/delete custom activity types - make sure that the user has Manage Customizations permission enabled on a Roles & Permissions page.

If you are using the custom field exclusively through an integration (API or Zapier), you can enable Hide (for API use only) so that type is not visible on a lead page, and as such Close users can't create one from the app user interface.

Custom Activity Fields

Upon creation of the new activity type, you'll be automatically redirected to add some fields to this activity type. Each field is just like a Custom Field you can use on Leads and Contacts - there are field options for Number, Text, Date & Time, etc. We'll create several ones for our Sales Qualifying Call activity type:

• Text Are they qualified?

• Choices (single) What is their current CRM?

• Number How many users do they anticipate having?

• Choices (single) How did they hear about us?

• Text What is their sales process like?

You can also mark any field as Required - users won't be able to create an instance of this type without including this field.

Creating a Custom Activity Instance

Custom Activities are created through the Lead page view, just like any other activity. Go to the Lead page > Activity > Sales Qualifying Call to add a new instance. Fill in all the details and click Save.

If you fill in some details and navigate away from the page without clicking Save, we'll automatically save it as Draft that you can delete or save it later on. Required fields are optional for drafts.

If you marked your Custom Activity Type as Restrict creation to API only then you won't see it here, but you'll be able to create one only through the API.

Searching and Filtering Custom Activities

Each Custom Activity Type will be visible within the search on a Leads page. You can search & filter by:

• date created

• date last updated

• created by

• last updated by

• any field within a custom activity

Reporting

You can report how often you've created a specific custom activity via Activity Overview and Activity Comparison reports.

Simply add a new tile, and you can immediately start tracking your new metrics:

The same applies to Activity Comparison, where you can select the custom activities as well:

Archiving Custom Activities

If a Custom Activity is no longer needed, consider archiving it.

When a Custom Activity is archived, new instances cannot be created on Leads. Previously created instances are still shown on Leads, and they can also be searched for. Archived Custom Activities can be used to keep Custom Activity logs on file even when not a actively used.

Archived Custom Activities do not count against an organization’s plan limits.

They can be unarchived later if needed.

API Documentation

If you’re interested in connecting to our API to automate your Custom Activities, review our API documentation for a list of different endpoints.