How Do I See All Activities Under An Account?

In Microsoft CRM 2011, a common need is to see all activities under an account, including all activities under any contact that is associated with that account. This common need is not handled very well right now in Microsoft CRM 2011. Here are some of the issues:

Issue 1. The Activities subgrid on the main Account form is not capable of showing the activities under the contact.

Note, for example, that with the Activities subgrid you cannot see the same "filter" and "include" options that you get when you click on the Activities navigation button in the Activities Form. We have played around with this quite a bit and have tried to Google it. There doesn't seem to be an easy fix.

Solution 1. Depending on your users, you might want to remove the Activities subgrid on the main form and force your users to click on the Activities navigation button. This will take them to the more powerful window that is capable of showing acitivities under the contact as well.

Issue 2. The Activities Associated View form (the form you get when you click on the Activities button in the Account screen) has some limitations.

Issue 2a. It defaults to showing activities with a due date of the Next 30 days. This default filter can be changed, but it takes some work.

Solution 2a. You can change the default filter using Javascript. See Good website that explains how.

Issue 2b. The filters on dates ("Next 30 days") ignore any tasks that don't have a due date. This is a serious problem, because users often create tasks or activities and they don't put in due dates.

Solution 2b. Using Solution 2a, you need to set the default filter to "All". That way, tasks without due dates will also be show.