Action plans provide you with a systematic and fail-safe way of keeping in touch with your contacts. Top Producer CRM comes pre-loaded with an extensive library of action plans-in both English and Spanish-that address virtually every prospecting and marketing scenario.
Once you assign a plan to a contact, it schedules a sequence of pre-written follow-up letters, emails and call reminders that occur over time. When these scheduled tasks come due, you’re automatically reminded to perform them on the Activities Summary page.
To view action plans, go to Calendar > Plans Manager.
Note: System plans come pre-loaded in the system and cannot be changed. In order to make changes to an existing plan, you need to create a copy. These personal plans are indicated by the Personal Plan 
icon next to the plan name.
- Filter your plans:
- Favorites: Displays all your favorite plans. Assign a plan as a favorite by clicking the star
next to it. When the star is yellow it is a favorite. - System: Displays all default plans. Unlike personal plans, default plan activities cannot be added, edited or deleted. However, you can create personal copies of the default plans.
- Personal: Displays all personal plans you have created. You can add, edit and delete personal plan activities.
- All Plans: Displays all system and personal plans.
- Favorites: Displays all your favorite plans. Assign a plan as a favorite by clicking the star
- The Show drop-down list allows you to choose between the four types of plans available. See the Plan Types section below.
- Create a plan from scratch by clicking Create Plan or click Auto Apply Rules For Leads to set up rules to auto apply plans to new leads.
Plan Types
There are four types of plans:
Action Plans:There are two types of Action Plans:
Fixed Action Plans:Many action plan names are the same, with either email or letter at the end. The only difference between a “5-year buyer prospecting plan (email)” and a “5-year buyer prospecting plan (letter)” is how the correspondences will be delivered. This is to ensure your contacts receive the same marketing message, regardless of whether they get it in an email or letter.
Tip: If you make any changes to an “(email)” action plan always make sure you also make them to the corresponding “(letter)” plan.
Viewing Plan Details
To open an action plan and view its details, click on a plan name. There are 4 tabs available that each display useful information about your plan.
Plan Info
Plan info allows you to view the action plan name and type of plan. Use the Copy Plan link to create an editable copy of the action plan. The Print Plan link opens a report listing all the plan’s activities and activity details on a separate Internet browser tab. The Print Plan window also allows you to download the information as an Excel file (.xls) or a Comma Separated Value file (.csv).
Close the browser tab to return to the open action plan.
Plan Activities
Plan Activities allows you to view the series of action plan activities that need to be completed at certain times. The list provides the activity description, the type of activity, when the activity is to be scheduled after it is applied to a contact, and to whom the activity is assigned by default (useful if an 8i account has multiple users).
Sort activities on the Plan Activities tab by using the Show drop-down list. “Chronologically” allows you to sort the activity steps in ascending or descending order based on the To Be Completed column. Choose “Apply grid sorting” and click on a column name to sort by any other column on the page.
You can view multiple plan activities by placing a check mark next to the desired activities and clicking the Mass Open link to open the Mass Open toolbar.
To open a plan activity and view its details, click anywhere on that activity.
Note that activities in an action plan have two additional fields. The Event Due field determines when or how the plan activity is scheduled. If the activity falls on the weekend, the Weekend Activities field determines if the activity is scheduled for the previous or next business day.
Action plan activities appear on the Activities Summary page on the day they’re set to be completed.
Plan Templates
Every template used in the plan appears in the list. You can see template details, such as the template type and category, the description of the corresponding activity, and when the activity is scheduled to be completed.
You can open multiple templates for viewing and editing by selecting the check boxes beside the templates, and then clicking Mass Open. You can also Preview an individual template by clicking the Email preview 
or PDF preview 
icon.
If you are viewing a Personal Plan, you can select a different template for an activity by clicking the Select another template 
icon. You can either select an existing template from the Category and Template drop-down lists, or create a new template.
Applied Contacts
The Applied Contacts tab, only available for Action plans, lets you view all the contacts that have a particular plan applied. You can generate a downloadable and printable report by clicking Applied Contacts Report.
To remove a plan from a single contact, click the Remove Applied Plan 
icon or, to remove a plan from multiple contacts, select the contacts and click Mass Update. (Using the Mass Update feature you’ll also be able to perform other mass actions on these contacts, such as apply a different action plan or assign another contact type.)