Activities

An Activity

is a logged occurrence against a record

Record

An individual entry within a Collection, like a row in a database table, representing one item or entity such as a customer or an order.

- a note, an email, a phone call, a meeting, or a change the system made itself. Together, a record's activities form a timeline you and your team can look back on to understand what's happened and why.

Where a Task

Task

Something that needs to be done, created against a record and optionally assigned to a colleague with a due date.

looks forward to work that still needs doing, an activity looks backward - it's the history of what already happened. See Tasks.

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1. What an activity is

Every collection with activities enabled starts with four built-in types: Note, Email, Phone Call, and Meeting. You can also add your own custom types - such as Inspection or Site Visit - to match your team's language.

Some activities are logged automatically, such as a note recording that a field changed. Most are logged manually by you or a colleague, describing something that happened off-platform. Every activity appears on the record's activity feed, grouped by day, showing who logged it and when.

Activities don't support threaded replies or @mentions - colleagues respond with an emoji reaction instead. See Using Activities.

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2. Enabling activities for a collection

Activities are a per-collection feature.

You'll need Configure permission for this collection. If you're unsure, ask your System admin.

1. Open collection configuration

Click the ⋯ (options menu) in the top-right of the collection view, or right-click the collection name in the sidebar and select Configure.

2. Go to the Activities tab

In the configuration panel, select the Activities tab.

3. Turn on activities

Turn on Enable activities for this collection. Every record in the collection gains an Activities tab.

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3. Adding custom activity types

Use the built-in types as they are, or tailor the list to your process.

1. Open activity type settings

Open collection configuration and select the Activities tab.

2. Add a type

Click Add Type, then set an icon, a colour, and a Label for the new type.

3. Manage existing types

Click the ⋯ (options menu) next to any type to Enable or Disable it. Custom types can also be Edited or Deleted from this menu; built-in types cannot.

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4. Showing activities on related records

If a collection is linked to another - such as Contacts linked to Companies - you can have an activity logged on one show up on the other too, so nobody has to check two places for the latest update.

1. Open activity configuration

Open collection configuration and select the Activities tab.

2. Turn on Show in related records

Turn on Show in related records for the relational field you want to share activities across.

3. Save your settings

Confirm the change. Activities logged on this collection now also appear in the activity log of the linked record.

This is especially useful for client communications, so everyone working with a related record has the latest discussion notes to hand.

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5. Learn more

Using activities

Log a note, email, call, or meeting against a record, and react to activities with an emoji.

Activity logs

View a record's activity timeline, or browse every activity across Kinabase from your Dashboard.

Email forwarding

Forward an email to log it as an activity automatically, without leaving your inbox.

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Need more help? Ask your System admin, or contact our support team via Help & Support.