Playbook task dates based on "Due Date - x days" or "Assign Date + y days"

Related products: None

When adding a due date to a Task in a Playbook, I can only select "Assign Date + y days" - This is OK for risks or opportunities but useless for events.





For example, our CSM has a QBR meeting scheduled on date x. 14 days before the QBR meeting they should complete task A and 7 days before they need to do B (so on and so forth). The format of the task dates in the playbook should therefore be "Due date - x days"





There is no way for me to schedule these tasks in Cockpit as I am stuck with "create date + y days".
Hi @Gabriel, 


We will take that consideration for future release when we update playbooks functionality next.
Same here. Not able to use playbooks in many of the situations where we would want to. CTA's in many cases are created/assigned and then the CSD schedules them as appropriate. Asking them to reapply the playbook every time isn't going to go over well 🙂
Hi Gabriel and JD -- Thanks so much for bringing up this topic on the Community!


I love the idea of having a new "due date - X days" option for assigning Playbook tasks when the rule runs.   JD, do you also need the Playbook task due dates to adjust/shift if and when the CTA due date changes?  





First example:  Business review rule runs with default due date of 8/1 and several tasks using a "due date minus X days" approach.  Then the CSM actually gets the "business review" scheduled for 8/22.  When the CTA date is pushed out, are you expecting any or all of those tasks to move?  If so, does this logic only apply to Event CTAs and only remaining open tasks (if the first task was to schedule the meeting and you've done that)?  





Second example:  Business review rule runs with a default date of 12/31 and several tasks using a "due date minus X days" approach.  Then the CSM actually gets the "business review" scheduled for 10/1.  In this case, right now you can't have a task due past the overall CTA due date so they wouldn't be able to change the CTA to 10/1 without moving the tasks.  When the CTA date is being pulled in, I think we've been recommending putting a Comment in the CTA rule giving them initial guidance & telling them to apply the Playbook once it's scheduled.  (This would also get you the most current version of the Playbook if it changes between now and Oct).   But alternately, would you prefer for there to be an option to adjust the CTA and Playbook due dates all at once?  (We're also capturing "original due date" for reporting purposes but I think that would be much less valuable data point in this case, correct?)  





Would be great to get your perspective on the best workflow...  Thank you, Gabriel and JD!
Hi Elaine; yes - that is the 2nd half of the equation... If due dates shift for the CTA, then playbook tasks should correspond. I have that elsewhere on the community under post:


Update playbook task dates if CTA is rescheduled. Thanks!
if due date of CTA changes, playbook task dates should change as well
Additional customers, including Procore and Prosper, have also inquired about whether this functionality will be changed in the foreseeable future. It would be ideal to be able to choose what the Tasks dates look at, as far as CTA assigned vs due date, and if an adjustment is made to the final Tasks under a CTA, other Tasks shift accordingly.
Agree with what you're saying.  Having tasks dynamically shift based on when steps are changed is critical.  Right now if you fall behind on one step on the playbook, then you have to either accelerate the playbook completion (which is not always possible when it involves the customer direction) or push out the tasks so you're not overwhelmed with overdues.
This would be paramount for our team. When our QBR triggers, it can take weeks or months to actually schedule a call which means by the time we actually have the call we have updated each of the tasks manually multiple times. It would be great to have the tasks associated to the CTA change when the CTA date is updated. So just as Gabriel had mentioned CTA Date - 7 or CTA Date -14 would stick so that every time the CTA date was moved those dates would remain 7 or 14 days before the due date.
Agreed, the ability to schedule tasks based on X Due Date - Y days is really how my team thinks of how to plan their work. My team is often dependent on other teams to provide data or other assets for a client meeting. These teams have SLAs, which means we need to think ahead about when to ask for information.
As we are working on scoping this out, we would like to take your feedback on how the following situation should be handled - 




  1. You have a playbook with 2 tasks. Due date of Task 1 is due date - 15 days and task 2 is due date - 5 days.

  2. CTA is due in 10 days from today

  3. Now when you apply this playbook, then task 1 would end up being overdue by 5 days. 
In this scenarios, which of the following options would your prefer? 




  1. Task 1 be created as overdue

  2. Task 1 is due today, task 2 is due in 10 days from today and the CTA is due in 15 days from today. The due dates of task 1, task 2 and CTA are adjusted by 5 days. 

  3. Task 1 is due today, task 2 is due in 5 days from today and CTA is due in 10 days from today. Only task 1 is adjusted by 5 days. 
Thanks in advance for the feedback. 
My two cents... reality always wins. In this case, if the first task is really supposed to be done due date - 15 days, and the playbook is getting applied 10 days before CTA Due Date - then task 1 is 5 days overdue and task 2 is still scheduled for T-5 days... as DEFAULT. The CSD should be able to look at that, and if appropriate, change the due date of the CTA; which would then adjust the individual tasks accordingly. Or they leave it alone, get task 1 done as soon as they can and do task 2 as scheduled.
As JD Griffis states, reality wins. Scenario 1.
This would help Angie's List as well.  It is cumbersome for a rep to not only change the due date of the CTA but also change the date on each individual task.  
Agreed. Scenario 1.
This enhancement will be available in our Jan 2016 release. 
Very happy to see this will be released in Jan 2016. Will the release also apply the feature to Success Templates? I understand Playbooks and Success Templates are a bit like fraternal twins - and this feature would be extremely helpful there (with Scenario 1 applied) as well.