Events and Calendar in Salesforce - Advantages and Limitattions

6:17 AM

I was playing around with the Events and Calendar functionality available in Salesforce and thought it would be worth sharing my understanding......... Here it is.......

Events:

Advantages

  • You can add multiple Participants to an Event.
  • The Participant could be a User, a Contact or a Lead.
  • You can send Invites to all participants.
  • You can associate any object with an Event.
  • Meeting Invites display the start and end time according to the User's Time Zone.
  • Out of the box 'outlook' / 'Lotus Notes' sync
Limitations:
  • You cannot modify the meeting invite.
  • You cannot add a custom LOOK UP field to your Event (Setup --> Activity Custom Fields).
  • Meeting Invites display in the Time Zone of the Event creator for Participants who are Contacts (Obviously, they do not have a Time Zone).
  • Only 1 x large text field
  • Date cannot be used in formulas / workflows
  • It is not simple to view all the events a participant has been to (attendees vs 'who' on the event)
  • Invites have salesforce branding (can be removed with a black tab setting)
  • Polymorphic fields (who and what) are difficult to use in formulas
Calendar:

Advantages:

  • You have multiple views of your calendar (Weekly,daily,multi-user view etc).
  • You can view event details straight from your calendar by just hovering over the date (Mini Page Layout's actually).

Limitations:

  • You are allowed to create elapsing events. Salesforce does not stop you from creating an Event for a User even if he is BUSY.
  • Calendar displays multiple Events side by side.
  • The Calendar can only be placed in the Home Page.
  • The Calendar is not customizable.

2 comments

  1. A couple more limitations on Event

    only 1 x large text field
    Date cannot be used in formulas / workflows
    It is not simple to view all the events a participant has been to (attendees vs 'who' on the event)
    Invites have salesforce branding (can be removed with a black tab setting)
    Polymorphic fields (who and what) are difficult to use in formulas

    Advantage
    out of the box 'outlook' / 'Lotus Notes' sync

    ReplyDelete
  2. Calendar can appear in list views, though I've never used it and don't really understand how that works.

    ReplyDelete