Overview
Lead Notes in Merchant Central help you keep track of important information, collaborate with your team, and maintain a record of lead activity in one convenient location.
You can create and share notes, attach images, pin important updates, edit existing notes, and search or filter notes to quickly find the information you need. Merchant Central also records system-generated activities, such as emails, appointments, and e-signature events, alongside user-created notes.
This article explains how to manage lead notes, share updates with assigned users, and view the most recent notes in dashboard reporting tables.
Navigating to Lead Notes
- Log in to Merchant Central.
- Open the lead you want to view or update.
- Click the Notes tab.
The Notes tab allows you to create notes, share information with assigned users, search existing notes, and filter notes by category.
If a lead is linked to a merchant account, the lead is also displayed under the merchant's Profile tab of the Merchant Details page, and you can add lead notes there as well.
How Do Lead Notes Work?
Lead Notes provide a central record of information and activities associated with a lead. Notes can be created manually by users or generated automatically by Merchant Central.
User-created notes help your team document conversations, share instructions, and communicate updates. System-generated notes provide a history of activities such as emails, appointments, payments, and e-signature events.
Saved notes are displayed in chronological order at the bottom of the Notes tab. You can search, edit, delete, pin, or filter notes as needed.
How to Add a Lead Note
- Open the lead and select the Notes tab.
- Click inside the new note field.
- Type the information you want to save.
- If needed, add images and select users to notify.
- Click Create to save your note.
- The new note will appear in the Notes tab.
Using Speech Recognition to Create a Note
You can also speak your note instead of typing it.
- Open the Notes tab.
- Click the microphone icon in the Notes field (in the lower right corner of the field).
- Speak the information you want to add.
- Merchant Central's speech recognition feature automatically enters your words into the note text field.
- Review the text and click Create.
How to Add Images to Lead Notes
Your images can be pasted directly into lead notes, making it easy to share screenshots, instructions, questions, and other visual information with your team.
To add an image to your note, copy the image to your clipboard and paste it directly into the note field.
Once the image preview appears, you can change the image title and optionally select a label, or leave the default label.
Repeat these steps to add multiple images to the same note.
How to Preview and Download Note Images
- Find the note containing the image.
- Click the image to open a full-size preview.
- To save the image to your computer, click Download File in the preview window.
Images attached to notes are also available in the lead's Attachments tab. Look for the image title you entered when adding the image to the note.
How to Manage Existing Lead Notes
In the top-right corner of each note you'll find shortcuts that allow you to manage the note.
Depending on what type of note it is, some shortcuts may not be shown.
The following shortcut actions are available:
- Edit note — A pencil icon. It is shown only on notes created by users. Click the icon to edit the note and save the changes.
- View note history — If a user note is edited, you can click this icon to view the history of the note's changes.
- Pin note to top — Click this icon to pin the note to the top of the list. To unpin a note, simply click the pin icon again, and confirm the change.
- Delete Note — A thrash icon. Click to delete a note.
- View Email — An envelope or an eye icon. Click to view the email note.
- View Attachments — A paperclip icon. Click to view email attachments.
- Reply/Reply All/Forward — The arrow icons. Click to reply or forward a lead email.
- Notified — A bell icon. Shows the users that were notified on note creation-
How to Search and Filter Lead Notes
The Notes tab contains both user-generated and system-generated notes. You can search notes or filter them by category to find relevant information more quickly.
How to Search for Notes
To search for notes enter the search phrase in the Search box and the Notes list will automatically filter to show the matching results.
To search for notes created on a particular date, enter the date in the search box using the mm/dd/yyyy format.
How to Filter Notes by Category
To filter your notes by note category, click the Filters button, select your categories, and click Confirm.
The Notes tab now displays only the notes in the selected categories.
Below are the descriptions of the available note categories.
- Calendar: Appointments that have been scheduled, confirmed, or rescheduled.
- E-Sign: E-signature documents that have been opened, signed, or updated with new information.
- Status Triggers: Actions performed by Status Triggers, including emails sent by a trigger.
- Visitor Tracking: Page views and visit durations for tracked visitors to your website.
- Payments: Payment-related notes.
- Communications: SMS messages sent or received, and Voicemail Drops.
- Emails: Emails that have been sent, scheduled, edited, canceled, or opened.
- User: Notes manually entered by a user.
- POST API: Notes created during lead import through the POST API.
How to View the Most Recent User Notes in Dashboard Reports
Merchant Central allows you to display the most recent user-created notes directly in dashboard reporting tables using the Last Note and Last Note Date columns.
This makes it easier to review recent lead activity without opening each lead individually.
To add the columns to your report table, follow these steps:
- Open a dashboard reporting table.
- Click the Gear icon in the upper-right corner of the table.
- Find and select the Last Note and the Last Note Date fields.
Once enabled, the Last Note and the Last Notes Date columns appear in the reporting table.
To find the Last Note option faster, type 'Last Note' in the search field. The dropdown menu will automatically move the matching option closer to the top.
You can sort the table by these columns in ascending or descending order, just as you would with other enabled columns.
You can also reposition the columns by dragging and dropping column headers to the left or right in the table header row.
When enabled, the Last Note and the Last Note Date columns can also be exported to Excel or CSV file from the report table, along with any other enabled columns.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why don't I see any notes on my lead? The notes on your lead may be filtered out with your note category filters. Confirm that the filters are configured correctly, or enable all note categories to see all of your notes.
- Can I notify users who are not assigned to a lead? Yes, you can notify users that are not assigned to the lead by selecting them in the notification pick list.
- Can I add multiple images to a single lead note? Yes. You can paste multiple images into a single note by copying each image to your clipboard and pasting it into the note field.
- Where can I find images attached to lead notes? Images are displayed below their associated notes and are also available in the lead's Attachments tab. Search for the image title entered when the image was added.
- Can I edit a note created by another user? No, lead notes can only be edited by the user who originally created them.
- Can I see the changes made to an edited note? Yes. After a note has been edited and saved, you can click its history button to view the changes in a popup window.
- How can I find notes created on a specific date? Enter the date in the Notes tab search box using the mm/dd/yyyy format.
- Can I filter notes to display only manually created notes? Yes. Click Filter and select the User category to display notes that were manually entered by users.
- How do I keep an important note at the top of the Notes tab? Yes, simply click the pin icon on a new or existing note.
- Can I view lead notes without opening each lead? Yes. Enable the Last Note and the Last Note Date columns in your dashboard reporting table to view the most recent user-created notes.
- Can I include lead notes in exported reports? Yes. Once the Last Note and Last Note Date columns have been enabled in your report table, they will be exported to an Excel or CSV file along with the other report columns.