Handling Events

ERPNext Project Management
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Hello everyone, hello @rmehta,

steadily growing into ERPNext we are looking to use the Event feature to later sync all our Calendars towards other software like phones and thunderbird outlook etc.

I have found several different approaches inside ERPNext how such events are handeln.

  1. Calenderviews being overviews for any DocType with a date field.
  2. Events being calls, e-mails, meeting etc. (these can be activated when creating custom DocTypes)
  3. Todos (which seem to be a kind of combination of 1. 2.)
  4. Appointsments which is a fairly new DocType to be used for leads or customers to schedule appointments with sales people

Can some one give some information on what is really used for which purpose?

I am asking, because I am wondering why the “allow events in time line” can only be turned on at admin-level and why this is not implemented in e.g. task. My idea is, that a projects task can also require several meetings and/or calls which can be planed and documented from within the task DocType. My conclusion is then, why not use this also in Issue, Opportunity, Quotation, etc. to use these as reminders, project calendars, or for other planning purposes?

I am looking forward to hearing from you all!

Kind Regards
Wolfram

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Hi @wojosc

Calendarviews, are an resource that frappe provide to us, for something mimic an agenda.

For example, you can have an agenda of:

Orders to Delivery, basedly on the Delivery date of Sales Orders.

Orders Issued, basedly on the Transaction date of the Sales Orders.

Payments of Orders to Receive basedly on Payment Schedule dates of the Order.

So with the Calendar views, anything you think may have a improved visualization basedly in some date fields, will may have this improved view, same as Gantt, or a Tree view.

The unique point is that some fields or customizations are required to it work fine.

About Events, they are literally “Events” in your agenda, and also have an calendar view.

Commonly events are public (everyone can see, or other people at the organization may have interest on this), and Private, (only me is who have interest on that)

Events appear on the Timeline of any doctype, if it’s activated.

Todos, I like to call they as “Post-it”, they are good as reminders of things you need to do, or something that someone else need you to take attention, usually ToDos are generated on the assignment of an document, but I like to remember the users that ToDos are 'Post-it", like, if I’m out of the office and someone call me, instead of let me an yellow post-it on my desk, let me an ToDo in ERPNEXT.

They are also good, for you received an daily report of things to do, to start organizing your work day.

Appointments are also events, but they have an dedicated space, because they are tight to an Customer or Lead, and are part of an better CRM.

I do agree they may can have been merged into Events, but to don’t get missed because events they have they own special place!

The answer of your question is “because at the development no one tought it was important in other places”

But I fully agree with you, Events, Meetings, Emails and Appointments should exist everywhere, and they can get better when contextualized with the other documents and transactions of ERPNEXT, same as the ToDo’s are when they come from an assignment.

Also, like in your agenda, you can consider that each Calendar view, or the Events, ToDos and Assignments are dedicated agendas

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I would like to jump into this discussion :slight_smile:

Isn’t this the reason for DocType “Communication”?

As I understand "Communication right now, it does:

  1. “Communication” DocType will show at least E-Mails sent and received.
  • If an “Event” or “Appointment” has been linked to another DocType by using the “Participants”-section, a “Communication”-Entry will be created. That Communication-Entry contains almost the same information as the linked Event/Appointment, but it is an independent object.
  • If something gets changed in the Event/Appointment itself, that won’t get updated in the Communication-Entry (bug??).
  • If I want to show the Communication information not just in the referenced DocType, I can use “Timeline links” as part of the Communication-Doctype, this will show the Communication-Entry within the timeline of linked DocTypes. With this it is possible to have a Event/Appointment/Task/… be visible as part of all required timelines.
  1. To get an overview regarding what interaction is going on in ERPNext, “Communication ListView” will show all information as long as they have been linked or are type Email.

Is this understanding correct? Or did I misunderstood “Communication”? If so, @wojosc it could be also an option not to synchronize “Events” but instead “Communication”?

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@Patrick.St In the past “Communication” and “Events” was being handled at the same table “Communications”, but the developers did a breakdown into 2 tables (Communications and Events)

  • Mainly because communications aren’t supposed to be editable like “Events”, I mean, what’s said is said, and you cannot return back, but for what’s planned you may can change.

So, I think you cannot anymore handle events into communications, because this break change.

In the past yes, currently no!

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