Collection, structure or notice – which fits when?

Every activity sits inside a parent element. There are three of them, and each has its own purpose.

Collection – loose sheets in a folder

A collection holds activities, data, files and links without putting them in order – like a document folder or a clip file. All content sits on one level.

A collection is created automatically as soon as you create an activity or send a note from the app. You can also create an empty collection and fill it step by step.

Example: You quickly create a note in the header. Salesware creates a collection for it, with the note in its overview. If the note should belong to a specific customer, simply add the customer to the collection.

Whether a new collection starts out private or public is set by your administrator for each activity type. A private collection is only visible to its participants. You can change the visibility at any time – see Add and remove participants.

Structure – a binder with cover sheet and dividers

A structure defines a process. It can have its own overarching details (the “cover sheet”) and is divided into milestones (the “dividers”), to which activities and attachments are assigned. In addition, content can be grouped in folders.

Salesware shows the progress of milestones and folders. The progress of the whole structure is also available as the field “Progress” (in percent) – you can show it in lists and tiles, filter by it and sort by it.

Example: You work in sales and handle opportunities according to a fixed scheme. You create a new “Opportunity” and immediately see the defined phases as milestones – with the tasks due in each phase.

You can add activities and attachments directly to the structure or to an individual milestone. This lets you map individual processes as well.

Notice – a folder that makes itself noticed

A notice also bundles activities and data. In addition, it is shown on the linked data – as a notice, warning or error. Through inheritance it also appears on data related to the linked record: a complaint on an order can thus also be visible on the customer of that order.

Ideally, only add the data a notice is about. How a notice is set up and used is shown in the practical example Handling complaints with a notice.

The decision at a glance

You want to …	Then use
record something quickly and add to it as needed	collection
run through a recurring process the same way every time	structure
make everyone who opens a customer or document notice something immediately	notice

See also

• Activity types at a glance
• Link data to an activity
• The status field – how the status of a collection affects the activities it contains