Act! users often develop habits when logging details about their contacts, choosing either Notes or Histories based on their initial usage patterns. The distinction between the two isn't always clear or important to them, leading to a habitual choice rather than an intentional one. However, there are a couple of crucial difference between Notes and Histories, and using the wrong one can seriously limit the insights you can gather from your data later on.
Use Cases:
- Notes: Use Notes to log details about the contact, such as "Bob is a big soccer fan," "Betty loves to travel to Europe," or "Peter is passionate about politics."
- Histories: Use Histories to log interactions with contacts. For example, record the outcome of a meeting with Bob, how long a call went with Betty, or whether an appointment with Peter finished on time and required a follow-up.
This distinction is clearer when you consider that Notes do not have fields for duration, outcome, follow-up, type, or subject. These details are unnecessary when describing the contacts themselves. For instance, Peter's passion for politics doesn't require these details, just as Betty's love of Europe doesn't.
The reason is simple. Notes express an observation, not an outcome.
Histories are different. Histories provide a structured way to record the outcome of contact interactions, including:
- Duration of the meeting.
- Outcome of the call.
- Follow-up actions required.
- Type of interaction (e.g., call, email, meeting, appointment, etc.).
- Subject of the activity
Histories require all these additional details because the outcomes of activities can vary widely. For example, how long was the meeting, what was the appointment about, how did it turn out, and did it require a follow-up action? Both Notes & Histories have space to record verbose details, but only one can express what happened. This is why we're prompted to record a History when clearing an Activity, and not a Note.
Notes are simply not structured to record these types of outcome details.
Why Does It Matter? The short answer is insightful qualitative reporting. For example, if you need to account for how much time you spent with a client over the course of a year, it's useful to know how many hours were spent on calls or meetings, how many emails were sent or received, or how often meetings were missed versus completed. This kind of data can only be gathered from Histories.
Notes, on the other hand, only yield quantitative reports, such as the number of notes per contact, user, or group. Since there are no different "types" of notes or subject lines, no qualitative reporting can be rendered from Notes.
Imagine you have a sales representative whose numbers are down, and you need to determine if it's due to effort, luck, or skill. Him recording all interactions in Histories would show the calls completed vs. attempted, voicemails vs. emails, or in general terms, shots on net vs. goals. If these numbers remain constant through good times and bad, there's reason to believe he'll work his way out of the slump. However, if the shots on net are down, corrective action may be needed.
Summary: The goal here is not to label Histories or Notes as good or bad, but to understand when to use each. Misusing one for the purpose of the other can seriously limit the insights business owners can gather from their data, leading to uninformed decisions. When users develop good habits from the start, business owners get better data, and are equipped to make better, data-driven decisions.
