Productivity and Collaboration
Activities and the timeline
Tasks and events are activities. Tasks have a status and due date; events have start and end times, duration, and invitees. Shared Activities lets you relate a task or event to multiple contacts or leads - once enabled it cannot be turned back off, so treat it as a one-way decision. Activity timelines on records show logged calls, emails, and events. Einstein Activity Capture can sync email and calendar into the timeline without creating reportable Salesforce records, which is a classic exam trap.
Chatter and collaboration
Chatter groups are public, private, or unlisted. Private groups can be found in search and joined by request; unlisted groups do not appear in searches and need a direct link or invitation. Followers determine what lands in a user's feed, and topics tag posts for discovery. Global actions and quick actions let users create records from anywhere in the UI and can carry predefined field values.
Files and notes
Notes and Files both attach to records. Files are the modern replacement for classic Attachments, and Notes support rich formatting and are searchable. Quick Text speeds up repetitive typing, especially in the console.
Traps
- Shared Activities cannot be disabled once enabled.
- Unlisted groups are invisible in search - a user who cannot find the group was likely given the wrong group type.
- Activities appear only in report types that include them; an opportunity report will not show tasks unless the report type covers activities.
- Einstein Activity Capture data lives outside standard activity reporting.
Worked example
A manager asks why a rep's logged calls are missing from the account's activity timeline. Confirm the call was logged as a task with that account as the related record, and that the activity timeline component sits on the Lightning page in use. If email is missing but the rep insists it was sent, suspect Einstein Activity Capture rather than a lost task.
Rule of thumb: if it was captured automatically, it probably is not reportable.