Question

Interactive report across multiple objects

  • 1 September 2017
  • 6 replies
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Userlevel 4
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Looking for suggestions from the field on best use case for the following scenario from an admin's perspective...



We'd like to pull a report across multiple objects (i.e. opportunity, account, customer info) that we can review upcoming Customer Success owned renewals each quarter. The strategic part I'm trying to figure out is how do we track a couple of key questions that we will fill out during our meeting and store them so we can push this information upstream at any time.



What are your suggestions for the best area to do this:

1) Data spaces - my initial go-to. Relatively easy to pull this info into a report, but I'm not sure the best way to capture information from our meetings.



2) MDA - Another thought was to build a table and either feed this via rules engine, or just to upload information manually via csv after each meeting (since this will only be quarterly). This is a little more high maintenance but we could add in a column for date tracking.



Any suggestions off of these, or other ideas? Thanks for the help!

6 replies

Userlevel 7
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Hi Jake,



If I understand your question correctly, what you're looking for is a report that allows you to edit certain fields inline. Similar to the Scorecard Mass Edit report except allowing you to edit other data fields other than the score and comments. Is this correct?
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Hey Dan,

I [i]think so. Essentially we'd have an internal opportunity review and we'd answer 4 main questions that we don't have data for on each opp that rolls back up:

1) Concerns (free text)

2) R/Y/G on renewing (picklist)

3) R/Y/G on timing (picklist)

4) Expansion opp? (boolean)



So overall I think the answer is yes to your question. Make sense?
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And would you want to track the historical records of each of these fields, since they'll be updated at each Opp review?
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Two thoughts on your comment, Seth.



1) Yes, so we could potentially put a date field in an MDA object (if we were to go that route) 



2) If it's tied directly to an opp we may not need historical records, correct?
Userlevel 7
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Yup, that's what I was thinking. You could either enter separate records for each Opp review, or enter the info on the Opp and use History Tracking on the fields (though I don't think I've seen history tracking used on free text -- do you know if it's possible?)



You *could* use Dan's suggestion of scorecard mass edit. Set up those four items as scorecard metrics with 0% weight toward the overall health score. However I'm not sure the exact nature of history tracking you'd get, nor whether Scorecards 2.0 will expand or restrict your functionality on this front.
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The answer I would like to give is that you have a custom Activity Type that holds the data you describe (Concerns, timing, expansion chekcbox) and then post to Timeline as part of the meeting.  I think that is the right construct for this info.  The challenges are (1) tying to an Opp and (2) the current user experience would probably require lots of clicking around.  We have some thinking underway on exposing Timeline on dashboards, which might help this.  



Focusing on the Opp side, for a minute, I will share a philosophy around how Opps should play in Gainsight, for what it is worth.  I think of two very different types of Opportunities -- those that would result in a new Relationship with the customer and those that are incremental to existing business.  Roughly that is: Land / substantial cross-sell vs Renew / Upsell.    For the first type of Opportunity, the corresponding concept in Gainsight is a Relationship.  You could even create a Relationship and have a status of "Potential" or something like that.  There is a new piece of business that, if it happens, means you have a new Relationship with the company.  The other type of Opps aren't about new Relationships but rather working through a process within an existing Relationship.  Here, the corresponding concept is a CTA.  Most likely you would create your CTA with the Opp record as an associated object. 



It seems to me that you are dealing with Opportunities of the second type.  So my out-there suggestion for dealing with your challenge is the following: Create a CTA Type that holds the Account/Customer Info fields that you want plus the Opportunity fields in an associated record.  Use the Rules Engine to create a CTA for each Opportunity of interest with the Opp record linked.  To run the meeting, go into Cockpit and filter for just those CTA.  You can then work down each one, reviewing the fields and creating a Timeline Activity within that CTA that holds the assessment.   The UX is not ideal here -- too much clicking and not enough space in the CTA detail view.  But it might work(?)

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