In every business it is very important to keep track of the updates so that you don't miss out any vital information. Say for example, in sales it's crucial to track the "deal stage" or "lead status" to get an idea of the entire progress or traversal of a deal or lead. In the CRM, you can track the history of such picklist values each time it gets updated. In addition to this, you can also see the changes in the related fields and its values with respect to a record's transition to different stages.

Let's take a few examples to understand this further. 

Scenario 1. The sales manager wants to pinpoint the stage in the lead conversion process that shows a major stagnation. So, he tracks the "lead status" picklist field to find out the amount of time a lead spends at a particular stage. The tracking showed that the lead was held at "not contacted" stage for 15 days before moving to "contacted". It was easier to track this update since every transition of "lead status" was recorded. 

Scenario 2. The sales manager wants to track the variation in the total amount that is quoted for every Quote stage. So, he enables tracking in "Quote stages" and chooses "Amount" as the related field of a record. 

Enable picklist history tracking

You can enable tracking for one picklist field per module. The history tracking for the mentioned field will be enabled across all the layouts. In the Picklist History related list, we will display 4 default fields namely picklist values, duration, modified time and modified by. Aside from this, you can include 10 additional fields.

To enable history tracking

1. Log in to your CRM account.
   
2. Go to Setup > Customisation > Modules and Fields.
   Module refers to the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, etc. tabs.
3. Click the desired module and select a Layout.
   
4. In the Layout editor, go to the required picklist field, click the Settings icon and select Edit Properties.
   
5. In the Pick List Properties page, select the Enable history tracking for picklist values checkbox.
   
6. In the Picklist History Tracking page, select other Fields you want to view.
   Note that the fields which are marked as Encrypted will not be listed here.
   
7. Click Done.
   

 View history tracking

You can view the tracking history of a record as well as the other selected fields right under the record's related list.

You can also select the fields to be shown in the picklist history related list and unselect the unwanted fields.

Points to Remember

• The CRM provides smart filter options with which you can filter the records based on the duration.
  
• The tracked data will be available in the Data Backup section, so you can access it anytime.
• History tracking for picklist values option is not supported in the Activities module.
  
• If the tracking option for a picklist field is disabled or if the picklist field with the tracking option enabled is deleted, then all the tracked data will be lost permanently.
  
• Tracking will not be enabled for the picklist field created in other modules from Leads, Quotes, and Sales Order using "Also create for" option.
  
• While selecting fields in the related list column, you will not be able to select any field that is encrypted.