Ability to update multiple timelines at once?

Related products: None

I have over 40 clients in GS and often make an update to multiple client sites at once. Is there a way to mass update the accounts in GS with the changes made? We are encouraged to keep notes in GS for our clients but if I have to go into 40 Timelines to post the exact same update, it is ridiculously time consuming. Suggestions?
Hi Natalie. We're excited to hear about your use of Timeline. Can you give an example of the type of update that you would be making to 40 clients simultaneously? There might be another way to accomplish this and knowing the use case in more detail would be helpful. 





Thanks,


Dan
I am an implementation manager (probably better known as an account manager at most companies) for an educational software company. Sometimes, we have new features that require us to go into the sites and update them. I want to record that it was done in GS but not by going into multiple accounts and doing it one at a time.
Dan, I could provide you another use case that pertains to us as which might help as well. CSMs manage several accounts and in some instances we perform meetings in which several customers are invited to discuss a technical or architectural topic in which our company provides certain guidelines and then customers provide feedback on applicability. It would be useful for our CSMs to be able to make the update in the timeline of all their accounts which attended avoiding them to have to jump into 20 timelines to make the same update. Thanks Nathalie for bringing this up!
Good discussion!





Natalie - for your use case, are you just essentially noting that the update was complete or do you need to capture any specific notes or details related to the update? It sounds like what you're looking to do might be better accomplished via a Milestone - see this link for more info.





Timeline is intended for instances where there was a high value, human to human interaction or a key account update recorded on the account. It's basically a highly functional note taking system. If you're looking to track completion of an update or task just to note that it was done, then Milestones might be a simpler solution. 





As an added benefit - Milestones can be created via rules automation - so you could have a list of customers that had the update applied and then just run the rule that will create all the Milestone entries for you!





Marcelo
- that's another good use case. It sounds a lot like a Customer Advisory Board type of session, right? If I understand your use case correctly, there would be some general notes that would be the same for all attendees and you'd want to track for each company represented the notes as well as the attendees from that company that attended. Is this correct?
Dan you are correct on my use case. I was thinking of simplifying it for you so that we do not have to consider specific notes per account, but if we could do that as well it would be awesome. In simplified terms, if we could have an interface where we could load a spreadsheet with specific columns required that will trigger the creation of timelines events that would take care of it. I don't think we can currently do this with the S3 connector.
Marcelo's point is good as well. I often have webinars or meetings with multiple clients and the update would be the same. I guess the issue is that sometimes we do CTA's, sometimes it's a Timeline entry and now Milestones. That just gets even more confusing for anyone else who wants to look at my accounts. They would have to check 3 different places to see if something was noted? There needs to be continuity.
I looked through the docs you sent. Ideally, I would love to have a simple way to choose which accounts receive the update (whether it's on the Timeline, a Milestone, etc. doesn't matter). Basically, enter the update (date, description) and then maybe checkboxes that allow it to attach to specific accounts. 
That's correct. Currently Timeline entries can only be created manually. 





We are evaluating use cases around creation of Timeline events via the rules engine though for future releases.
So for noting that a customer received an upgrade and just capturing the date, title of update and some text description - this is really ideal for Milestones. 





One thing I'll note is that our product and dev teams are evaluating providing the option to show Milestones in the Timeline interface, which would allow you to record events such as this use in Milestones (and created en masse via rules) while still giving view and reporting flexibility via Timeline. 
Hi Dan,





We would like the ability to relate a single timeline entry to multiple customers as well. Our use case is that due to billing rules we have multiple accounts with distinct products, but they all share a single admin. We'd like to update the timeline on all of those accounts after an annual review, so that each of them reflects the most recent discussion and plan. Since they have distinct products, one of these accounts could have a different overall score and some may undergo a review process. Those timeline entries being reflected on each account would be critical for the reviewer, who may be unaware that all events on the parent account affect all children.





Thanks!
We have a similar requirement but for a different use case.


In 1x1 meetings between CSM and manager, they go over the list of customers. It would be great if they can add Timeline updates (with a summary of what was discussed) directly from the Customers UI view.


This would be similar to how you can update the Customer Comments (pencil icon in Customers UI Views).


Today, they need to go into each account separately and it is tedious.





Thanks,


Einat
Great use cases and discussion!





We have a lot planned for Timeline in 2018, both near term roadmap and later in the year. You'll definitely want to attend Gainsight's Product Roadmap webinar - Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 23 at 10am PST - to hear all about it.





Sneak peek - global timeline (the ability to create and view entries across your entire customer base from a single screen) is coming in winter 2018. 🙂

Any update on this request?  We, too, oftentimes participate in “parent” meetings that should ideally be captured on several “children” timelines, along with the Parent timeline entry.  Exact same content but no way to copy the same timeline entry to all children without manually having to open and add in each child’s timeline.


Let me convert this over to an idea post so we can start tracking upvotes. 

 

And please do upvote this idea if you are keen on it. :)


My vote for this request. I saw a similar post where most of them are requesting to provide the capability/option to Load data to Timeline using rules.

 


Hi All,

Would giving an option to clone the activity help? All of the details except company name will be cloned and you can then post the activity for another company.


@tracyhigginsyoung , @elaine_gray, @natalie_howell, @marcelo , @steven_doty, @einat_pick did you get a chance to view the comments here. We need your  inputs here.


Cloning the activity would certainly help.  If you could then choose several companies to clone it to at once, that would be most useful… otherwise having to re-clone for each additional company would be rather time consuming. 


can’t we use associated records for this usecase?
Although associated records have a limit of 10 for now. A max of 11 companies (10 associations & 1 main activity) are allowed using associated records.