Idea: Last Activity Date currently changes whenever a record is touched in any way (including field updates). My idea is that it should only be driven by
Activities (i.e. latest due date of a closed Activity and/or Lead/Deals). Updates to fields should not update
Last Activity Date. Ultimately that is what
Last Modified Date is for.
An even bigger wish (down the road) would be implementing user-facing options to tweak what actions should drive Last Activity Date.
At the absolute core of a CRM system should be the ability to easily identify contacts/accounts that have had no contact recently. In Zoho, this is currently not possible without customisation.
Competitors do it the suggested way so that CRM records can be easily prioritised by "aged importance" - i.e. easily identify those we
not been in contact with.
When fields are updated by users or workflows, these should not be considered as "activity" against a contact, deal, lead or account.
Provided Workaround: You can create a custom field (or fields) + triggers to suit your individual needs. Having done this for the past few years, I argue that it adds needless complexity, makes a lot of extra "noise" in your workflows and requires ongoing training to direct users to the custom fields.
I am eager to simplify our implementation by using Last Activity Date, straight out of the box.