If you manage a field sales team in life sciences, you know the drill—juggling schedules, making sure reps hit their calls, and reporting on activity without wasting everyone’s time. Veeva CRM can help, but only if you use it right. This guide is for sales managers, ops folks, and field reps who want to make the most of Veeva’s scheduling and tracking tools—without getting lost in pointless features or sales pitches.
Let’s get to it.
Step 1: Understand What Veeva CRM Can—and Can’t—Do
First, a quick reality check. Veeva CRM is built for life sciences field teams. It’s got a lot of bells and whistles, but at its core, it helps you:
- Schedule rep activities (calls, visits, lunches, etc.)
- Track what actually happened versus what was planned
- Report on all of it for compliance and management
But it's not magic. Garbage in, garbage out. If your data is bad, your reports will be useless. If reps hate the workflow, adoption tanks. So before diving in, talk to your team about what actually matters to track, and keep things as painless as possible.
Step 2: Set Up Call Planning and Accounts
Before you can schedule anything, you need the basics set up:
- Accounts: Clean, up-to-date customer records are key. Veeva can integrate with your master data, but check for duplicates, bad addresses, or missing info.
- Call Plans: These are targets—how many times a rep should see Dr. Smith this quarter, for example. Don’t overcomplicate it. Set realistic targets based on territory, not fantasy.
Pro Tip: If you’re new to Veeva, don’t import every field or legacy data point “just because.” Start lean, add fields only when you know why you need them.
Step 3: Scheduling Activities—The Right Way
A. Using My Schedule (The Calendar)
Veeva’s “My Schedule” is the workhorse for reps. Here’s how to make it work:
- Drag-and-Drop: Reps can drag accounts onto the calendar to create calls. Simple. Don’t force reps to fill out ten fields at this stage—keep it fast.
- Recurring Visits: For high-frequency targets, set up recurring calls. But don’t overuse this—every visit shouldn’t be on autopilot.
- Add Other Activities: Lunches, meetings, virtual calls—add them as needed. Don’t flood the calendar with “busywork” just to look productive.
What to Ignore: Fancy routing tools are tempting, but unless your team covers huge geographies, old-fashioned planning usually works fine.
B. Territory and Cycle Planning
For bigger teams:
- Use Veeva’s territory planning to assign accounts and set boundaries.
- Cycle planning (scheduling out a quarter or year) works, but don’t treat it like a contract. Plans change. Make it easy for reps to adjust.
Step 4: Logging and Tracking Activities
Scheduling is only half the battle. You need to know what actually happened.
A. Logging Calls
- Check-In/Check-Out: Mobile check-ins are quick, but only if GPS works and reps aren’t fighting the app. If it’s a pain, let them log manually.
- Call Details: Capture the essentials—topic, products discussed, next steps. Avoid making every field mandatory.
- Follow-Ups: Use tasks or follow-up reminders sparingly. If everything’s a “follow-up,” nothing is.
Honest Take: If you force reps to log every tiny detail, they’ll start making stuff up just to get through the day. Focus on what you’ll actually use.
B. Tracking No-Shows and Cancellations
- Mark visits as “canceled” or “no-show” right in the schedule. Don’t sweep these under the rug—patterns matter.
- But don’t punish honest reporting. If reps are scared to log failed visits, your data will be fiction.
Step 5: Reporting and Making the Data Useful
Now for the hard truth: most Veeva reports are only as good as the data behind them. Here’s how to get something useful:
A. Standard Reports
- Call Activity: Who’s seeing whom, and how often? Good for spotting gaps.
- Call Plan Attainment: Are reps hitting their targets?
- Product Discussions: Which products are being talked about most? (Hint: only useful if reps log it honestly.)
B. Custom Dashboards
If you’ve got a data person or some admin chops, set up:
- Territory Coverage: Map view of accounts seen vs. missed.
- Channel Mix: In-person vs. virtual vs. phone calls.
- Trend Lines: Are activities trending up, down, or flat?
Pro Tip: Don’t build dashboards just to impress your boss. Build what helps you coach reps and fix issues fast.
C. Avoid Vanity Metrics
Ignore reports that only exist to show “activity” without any tie to real business outcomes. Calls per day are meaningless if nothing comes from them.
Step 6: Tips for Training and Driving Adoption
A slick system means nothing if people won’t use it.
- Keep Training Short: Focus on the 5-10 things reps do most days. Skip the obscure features.
- One-Pager Guides: Make cheat sheets for scheduling, logging, and reporting. Forget the 100-page manuals.
- Feedback Loops: Ask reps what’s annoying or slow, and fix it if you can.
- Reward Accuracy, Not Just Volume: Celebrate honest data, not just big numbers.
What Doesn’t Work: Forcing feature adoption just because it’s “in the tool.” If nobody uses the fancy mapping feature, stop talking about it.
Step 7: Troubleshooting Common Headaches
- Slow Mobile App: If Veeva’s mobile version is laggy, check device age and network. Sometimes a simple app update helps.
- Dirty Data: Regularly audit accounts and clean duplicates. Bad data compounds fast.
- Shadow Systems: If reps are keeping their own spreadsheets, find out why. Usually, it means your process is too clunky.
Final Thoughts: Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
You don’t need a perfect system—just one that doesn’t get in people’s way. Start with the basics: clean accounts, simple scheduling, honest activity tracking. Tweak as you go. The best Veeva CRM setups aren’t flashy; they just work. If you’re not sure where to start, ask your reps what slows them down, fix that, and ignore the rest.
Better to have a few reliable numbers than a dashboard full of fiction.