A note is an activity. It is the typed context that is not a call, a meeting, or a synced email. After a review, an advisor writes two sentences on James: what he decided, and what still needs a signature. That note sits on the timeline with everything else, dated, attributed, and visible to people who can see the record.

Use a note for judgment. Use a call or a meeting when that is what happened. You can still ask Max to write the note from a message or an audio note, the same way you log a call. Do not paste a whole email into a note. The email is already on the timeline if the mailbox is connected.

Notes are not a second database. If you keep writing the same fact, “review month is March,” that fact wants a field. The note is for the story around it.

A to-do is a task with an owner and, when it matters, a due date. It can live on a record, in your personal inbox, or both.

On the record, the To-do’s tab shows every open item for that row, no matter who created it. If you and an operations lead both add a to-do on James, both appear there. That is the picture you want before a review: what is still outstanding on this household.

Your inbox is the other picture: what is assigned to you, across every record. Assign the to-do when you create it. If you leave it unassigned, it stays on James and never reaches anyone’s inbox. That is how work goes quiet. Put a name on it. Put a date on it only when there is a real deadline, like a funding date or a regulatory window.

Creating a to-do on the mandate and assigning it to operations is enough. They will see it on the deal and in their inbox. Completing it clears both. You do not need a parallel task in another tool.

These are not Max’s automated tasks. Max can have scheduled jobs of his own, covered later when you set him up. This lesson is the human to-do: call the client, send the IPS, book the review.

A file is an attachment on the row: an IPS, a signed mandate, a beneficiary form. Upload it on James, or on the deal, or on the ticket, depending on which record someone will open to find it. If the document is about the household, put it on the person or the company. If it is about the opportunity, put it on the deal.

Files show up in the record’s history so you can see who added them. They are not a substitute for a field. “IPS on file” can still be a yes or no on Contact. The PDF is the file. The field is what you filter and report on.

Do not build a Files table. Do not store the only copy in a chat with Max. Max conversations are not logged on the record. If the document matters, it belongs on James.

James is a Contact. The mandate is open. The beneficiary ticket is On You. An advisor drops a note after the review, uploads the marked-up IPS, and creates a to-do for operations: update beneficiaries by Friday. Operations sees the to-do in their inbox, opens James, reads the note, downloads the file, and finishes the ticket. Nobody forwarded a pack of attachments. Max can still summarize the household because the note, the file, and the activity are on the same records the team already uses.

Permissions still apply. If a group cannot see the timeline, they will not see a private email next to that note. If they can open the record, they can work the to-do and the file you meant to share. Put sensitive documents on the record you intend, and grant groups on purpose.

This is the last lesson in Workspace and CRM setup. You now have a data model, objects, record types, activities, fields, tables, views, users, groups, and the work that sits on a record. The test is still the same. Can you explain James Harrington in a minute? Person, family office, mandate, ticket. Lead became Contact. Email and phone stayed unique. The timeline has the emails, the WhatsApp group, the call Max logged, the note, the file, and the to-do. Advisors see it through the views they starred. Operations has the group access to finish the work.

If that picture is clear, you are ready for the next section: syncing your data, then setting up Max on top of a workspace that already makes sense.