We are wanting a way to easily track in Gainsight when a meeting is scheduled (future) with the client. This would include SBRs, normal syncs, or ad hoc meetings. Ideally this would link to our CSMs calendar and work similar to the Chrome Plugin where CSMs could just check to “add to GS Calendar” like you can check to “add to timeline”.
The intention is to give visibility to upcoming engagements with our customers and more easily track without causing additional work for the CSM that is manual. We do not want to create custom fields that require CSMs to keep track of on top the actually scheduling. We have found that method easily gets out of date and too cumbersome.
We are especially wanting to keep a better pulse on upcoming planned SBRs and then track on timeline when SBRs actually occurred.
Have you all implemented a workaround like this? Would be interested to know what it was and how it’s going.
I guess don’t understand why leaders would need to see the exact time and date for a future scheduled meeting for every customer account. Sounds kinda like they don’t trust their CSMs to be on top of things. Is tracking the conducted meetings MoM not enough to give them insight into how their CSMs are engaging?
that said, could you use a custom CTA type, setting due date as the date of the meeting and sync those to Google Calendar to show that a meeting is scheduled for that day and report on that specific CTA type/reason with future date and they can log a timeline entry within the CTA to capture minutes?
I am curious though why you’d have to trigger JO emails to provide info to the CSM rather than creating self-serve dashboard(s) and/or Success Snapshots they can pull necessary data and details for upcoming meetings. I’ve found that to be far more effective and less intrusive than emails.
Regardless - having a better connection with our CSM’s calendar to timeline is helpful in general. If there is a question of an account having something on the books, it becomes self-service to the other teams to get the information rather than bugging our CSM who already has a full plate. CSMs could then also have notes pre-set from their calendar to the Timeline, saving them time on templates. We can look at data that can help us understand if the timeline for the meeting needs to be moved.
If this solution doesn’t work for your team, that is totally fine. This would be helpful for the needs and asks of our team
I also think it’s important to consider the maturity of your CS org. We’re new to the CS motions, a relatively young CS team and department. We’re working on building good habits for our CSMs right now -- and those good habits mean having regular touchpoints with your book of business. This isn’t going to be a forever motion, but it’s necessary to build our foundation so we can be more strategic moving forward.
+1 for this request. Our Managers and others would like to have visibility to future meetings in GS along with other things they have visibility for.
Current Calendar integration is limited in visibility to the specific user itself.
This is to provide visibility to upcoming engagements with customers and what is being planned vs what is adhoc. Also, helps us manage time and personnel in various segments of customers.
If there is a way to allow CSMs to sync specific calendar events into timeline and automatically update them as they change or get rescheduled, that would be ideal scenario for us.
Have you considered creating a new activity to track scheduled meetings?
You don’t want to use the standard “Meeting” activity as it will skew reporting on meetings/touchpoints unless you’re reports are date filtered (less than ‘today’?).
Consider creating an activity type “Meeting Scheduled”, then you can report/track that activity. CSMs can use “Log to Timeline” from GS Assist to log the email to the timeline, then edit that entry to the new Activity Type “Scheduled Meeting”.
I wrote up a CTA-based way to achieve this:
This request in general feels like it was borne from not having I personally think Timeline is not the place to record future events/meetings for a few reasons.
I don’t think changing the Timeline functionality is the solution, because Timeline is really a point-in-time record of customer interactions and engagements that have already occurred where Cockpit/CTAs is the “to do” list of things that have yet to occur.
What I heard from a couple of CSMs on that VCAM was that they want/need to be able to see what’s coming and what has happened all in a single view. Creating a separate view in Timeline for upcoming meetings (introducing another place people have to consult) doesn't sit right with me as a solution.
I wrote up this community post a while back on how to use CTAs and the sync-to-calendar function to track upcoming meetings and future events. Not a perfect solution (especially bc you end up with TWO calendar entries - one for the CTA and one for the actual meeting you scheduled) but one that (again IMO) aligns the right feature to the right solution.
My suggestion to Gainsight on that VCAM was to create a special Meeting CTA type that integrates with Calendars so that when a user creates a Meeting CTA:
Also incorporate bi-directional integration so that if the meeting gets moved, the Due Date on the CTA changes + the ability to create a CTA when creating a Meeting through calendar (similar to creating a Timeline entry when sending an email through email client). The CSMs on the call seemed to like this idea better.
hate that you can’t edit comments in these posts anymore. Started to add a sentence at the beginning of that last comment, but then abandoned it but forgot to delete the fragment.
Agreed that I wouldn’t want future events to be on the timeline, timeline is a record of things that HAVE happened, not are due to.
If this is to sit anywhere I would have them as CTA’s and then log to timeline from that CTA auto-filling out some details (like the calendar widget on Home does)
Or create something new that isn’t trying to shoe-horn in to existing infrastructure not designed for the purpose...
hate that you can’t edit comments in these posts anymore. Started to add a sentence at the beginning of that last comment, but then abandoned it but forgot to delete the fragment.
I like@darkknight ’s CTA suggestion for this. I’m personally occasionally guilty of the offense, mostly because I wear many hats and I need to keep up. A CTA that would tell CSMs, hey’s you’re having/had this meeting, log an activity sounds sensible to me.
hate that you can’t edit comments in these posts anymore. Started to add a sentence at the beginning of that last comment, but then abandoned it but forgot to delete the fragment.
Yes currently a limitation but I have mentioned it to the PM of our Digital Hub Ideas module.
Just adding that I’m aligned with those who view CTAs as things that should happen and Timeline Activities as things that have happened
I certainly don’t want to detract from those who have use cases for timeline activities in the future, but I wouldn’t want any of this functionality to be mandatory
Thank you everyone for your valuable feedback.
I am actively working with our team to incorporate it into our roadmap.
I will keep you informed about the progress.