Question

Reporting on Strategic Engagement timeline entries logged from multiple locations

  • 21 October 2022
  • 7 replies
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Chelsea.holfield
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Hello, 

We have a metric that uses Strategic Engagement timeline entries to log strategic conversations with our customers, and we need to report on those activities.

Currently we’ve had to build a rather extensive data design in order to capture this information because every place one of these is logged (CTA, Scorecard, Relationship, Success Plan) generates a different  ID, and if it is added as an associated record it doesn’t generate a standard ID and therefore not trackable within the timeline activities object, requiring us to use the Associated Records object and then pull in all locations.

As it stands, every time a new place to log a timeline activity is added in Gainsight we have to rebuild this data design to incorporate the new type of timeline activity, which is not sustainable. This process makes it very challenging to create accurate reports and even harder to investigate. Curious if this is something other people are running into? Or if this functionality is actually working properly? Is there something that can be done to streamline this process for reporting moving forward?

Data design for reporting on Strategic Engagements

 

7 replies

A
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@Chelsea.holfield is this a specific activity type in Timeline called “Strategic Engagement”?

If yes, irrespective of how the timeline entry is added, you should be able to report on it directly from Activity Timeline.

I am thinking may be use a checkbox to have the author indicate if that specific timeline entry - call/email/update have strategic engagement and then report off of it if this can happen across multiple places.

 

Curious about the reason for trying to group in SPs, CTAs, scorecard etc.? Are you trying to show which CTAs, SPs are associated to these specific timeline entries?

This is what we have

Say we have a QBR CTA with strategic and tactical tasks listed to be accomplished. The CTA itself is a strategic initiative. A call that is tagged to this type of CTA has to be strategic engagement.

We have a DD built to pull associated timeline entries (customer calls) and merge with CTAs (specific ones with strategic initiative type CTAs like QBRs/ outcome objectives) and also show if the external attendee has a qualified strategic point of contact. So that is another merge with person records and external attendee list. We identify strategic contact using specific Roles assignment.

We have our CSMs associate any timeline entry that is relevant to these initiatives with the respective CTAs.

bradley
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@Chelsea.holfield it might be helpful to have more context on what exactly you’re reporting on and what is important on those reports. 

You are correct that if you utilize Associated Records, any of the “associated” Timeline entries (I’ll call them copies for convenience, but they’re really not) only exist on the ‘Activity Associated Records” objects. So if you capture Strategic Engagements for multiple accounts/assets with one entry, you’d need to base reporting off of that associated object.

 

However, if you’re just looking to see which Companies have had one or more Strategic Engagements and you care less about if that entry was at the Company, CTA, SSP etc. level, you probably don’t need an expansive Data Designer for that. You can traverse Activity Associated Records>Activity ID>Company or Activity ID>Relationship.

 

@aparimala unfortunately Activity Timeline does not capture the ‘copies’, only the original entries. So if you have a Company Timeline entry for Customer A and associated to Customer B, the timeline entry only shows up for Customer A in Activity Timeline.

 

A
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@bradley I believe you are right if you are looking at the global timeline tab. If you are looking at Company Timeline the copies will show up in both Customer A and Customer B timeline tab if the timeline entry is associated using Associated Records. Also, we should be able to report on this using Associated Record ID and Activity ID AFAIK.

I believe this complexity is introduced when using Associated records to log a single activity across multiple Company records.

bradley
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@bradley I believe you are right if you are looking at the global timeline tab. If you are looking at Company Timeline the copies will show up in both Customer A and Customer B timeline tab if the timeline entry is associated using Associated Records. Also, we should be able to report on this using Associated Record ID and Activity ID AFAIK.

I believe this complexity is introduced when using Associated records to log a single activity across multiple Company records.

True, it’s mostly a problem for Global view. Maybe they’ve changed it since it was introduced and I used it last, but in my original testing and discussion with engineering confirmed that the ‘copies’ are not stored in Activity Timeline. If that is incorrect that would certainly be an improvement :)

Chelsea.holfield
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Thanks for the responses thus far. 

@bradley - Yes, we are trying to track which companies have these Strategic Engagements logged and which CSMs logged them.

The specific reports are % of a CSMs Relationships with Strategic Engagements YTD

 

I think the complication comes in because we log all of these on relationships. So if a CSM logs a strategic engagement to the relationship and then associates it to another relationship, we need to be able to track both of those relationships as having strategic engagements. Same for anywhere a strategic engagement is logged. If they log a strategic engagement on a timeline via a CTA we need to be able to track that, we also need to be able to track if there was an associated strategic engagement logged via a CTA and so on, from any place that a timeline entry can be logged. 

Does this make sense?/provide some clarification?

bradley
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@Chelsea.holfield Gotcha, so it matters less (from what I understand) where it comes from, just that you can attribute it to the correct Relationship/Company.

 

If you go to Activity Associated Records, you should be able to use the GS Company ID and GS Relationship ID lookups to get the name and GSID of the Company and Relationship respectively of where your primary and subsequent entries are logged against (even if it was on a CTA). This should work without a complex Data Designer.

 

If you’re specifically looking where it was logged against, you can also pull in the Context ID, Context Name fields as well. There are certainly specific use cases where you’d want data designer, but if I understand correctly, this might work for your needs.

 

To find the accounts without any Strategic engagements, you might need to re-merge this with Company and Relationship (what you’re ultimately tracking against) data so you can have a full list of companies/relationships, and identify which have an engagement and which don’t.

 

I’m not currently using this feature so can’t fully test it for all you cases, but that might help you cut down on some of your DD complexity.

matthew_lind
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One very tactical approach here is to create a custom Object where each record represents a Strategic Engagement for a specific Company / Relationship. Then write Rules which populate the Strategic Engagement records from each of your potential data sources (CTA, Journey Orchestrator, Activity Timeline, Scorecard, etc.)

Pros:

  • You’ll have an object unto itself dedicated to Strategic Engagements.
  • I find the Rules Engine to be one of the most flexible and durable feature sets. Data Designer can sometimes surprise with an unexpected restriction (Case statements, lack of a Percent data type)
  • If a data source is added, changed or removed, you likely only need to revise a Rule, rather than rebuild a Data Designer in excruciating detail.
  • You can lookup to other Gainsight objects (such as Company / Relationship) for additional dimensionality instead of having to pack all needed dimensions into the Data Designer itself.

Cons:

  • A new custom object and Rules to populate may be more overhead compared to a Data Designer.
  • Your Data Designer is already built.
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