Ability to be able to log a call in Gainsight

Related products: None

Currently we have to go back into SF to log a call on an account and it would be nice to have that option inside of Gainsight. 
Yes - perhaps as a "Call CTA" so it can be tracked as part of Engagement Score, but also synched with Salesforce so other users have visibility.
If your Calls are recorded in SFDC and are no more than 1 "step" away from the SFDC Account, you should be able to use a Related List on your C360 view. We've done this, and our team can now add new Calls using the ADD button inside of Gainsight.






I like this idea but I did try to go this direction first and maybe I was trying to create a list off the wrong object. What object are you using?
Yes something like this. I know that they are working on something with emails that I saw on the product road map presentation but the ability to log a call and/or email from the c360 page would be great since we find ourselves jumping back and forth between SF and Gainsight. 
In our SFDC instance, we have an SFDC object named "Call Notes, Trip Reports & Stories"





In your case, you're likely looking for the object that governs your Calls. Whatever object you're creating when you do this natively in SFDC is the object you want Gainsight to spot.





Also, you'll need to build a Report on the same object. That report helps you




  1. Determine which columns/fields you want in the C360 view.

  2. Filter in or out any items (for example, maybe you only want to display Calls in the last 6 months)

For some reason I am not able to create the list...darn...I will submit a ticket. 
I just wanted to log a fresh +1 here, since we're now using the "Add" button on a Related List for the CSMs to be able to add a Task when having a random check-in call, training call, etc. That's an alright approach, since it's just not practical for them to create a CTA, add a Task (so that it gets sync'd to Salesforce for the other teams to see), and then close out the Task & CTA.





However, it's disappointing that these one-off calls aren't more closely integrated into a "timeline" of interactions with the customer, and that the CSM can't add them cleanly directly from the Cockpit, which is where I would like for them to be focusing their attention. I'm worried that they'll develop mental shortcuts for the Cockpit (in general, and in the C360) as "random good-to-know and nice-to-do items", and the Related List of Task as "the place where I actually do things".
We are planning to improve the ability within Gainsight to log calls, tasks and other activity against a customer and allow consuming this from a timeline view. 





ETA is not yet available. 
Would this be a specific record that we can report on as a record count by activity type?
Hi Andrew, 





We haven't gotten to the reporting specifics yet, but the direction is exactly what's being discussed on this thread. I'll reach out to you directly to discuss in further detail; would love to fully understand your requirements and make sure the solution works for you.





Thanks,


Manu
That would be great thanks
Until the Notes capability is available in Gainsight, you could create CTAs to represent Call logs and then have them created as Tasks of the type Call via Rules Engine. Before setting up the rules, following changes are required (most of these changed required SFDC admin access) -


  1. Create a CTA reason to represent call notes.

  2. Create a text area field on CTA object called "Call Notes" and add it to the detail view of the CTA type. Use this field to log notes since the standard comments field has HTML content and when it is synced to SFDC, it will not be readable.

  3. Create a text field called "Call to Action ID" on Task object. For all Tasks created from a CTA this field will contain the 18 Digit CTA ID and should be used as the Unique identifier in the Load to SFDC object action. 

  4. Create a formula field called "ID 18 Digits" on Call to Action object, to query and use it in the rules. While CTA ID should be mapped to the Related ID, this formula is mapped to the custom field on task object to be used as an identifier in the update and upsert operations.

  5. Created a dummy field on AssociatedRecrords object looking up to Account. No values will be populated in this field, but this is required to workaround the limitation of the need to have AccountID in rules before we can use AssocaitedRecords.

  6. Enable Task object under Rules Engine Data load Configuration and select all the fields that would be mapped. Following is a recommendation on the mapping that should be used while loading data to the task object - 

    1. Assigned To: CTA Owner
    2. Related To: CTA
    3. Subject: CTA Name
    4. Name: One of the contacts associated to the CTA (updated from second rule)
    5. Type: Call
    6. Due Date: CTA Close date
    7. Status: Completed
    8. Priority: CTA Priority
    9. Original Due Date: Original Due date of CTA

Following is how the rules should be configured. 




  1. SFDC tasks Sync Part 1 of 2: Load from Closed CTAs: This rule should query all Closed CTAs that represent a call log and create a SFDC task out of them using 'Load to SFDC Object' action. E.g CTAs that are 'Closed - Complete' and whose reason is 'Periodic Check-In Call'. Few point to note - 

    • Filter to only get CTAs that were closed in the last 2 days along with the filter to identify call logs

    • Create a Load to SFDC Object action and load data to task object

    • Schedule to run daily.
    • Make this an Upsert operation.
SFDC tasks Sync Part 2 of 2: Update contact from CTAs: This rule is required if you want to also sync the contact with who the call was made. Query Contact and CTA from an object called AssocaitedRecords where the contacts associated with a CTA are stored and update the corresponding task with the linked contact. Map and use the "Call to Action ID" field on Task object as an identifier. Make this an update operation. Few points to note -

  • If multiple contacts are linked to a CTA then the task in SFDC will be associated to only one of those contacts.
  • Make this action an update operation to make sure the contacts are update only for the tasks that were are already created in the first rule and not new tasks are created from this rule. 

What we have decided to do for now is use TASK from Salesforce and use the comment box on the task and work duration field. The comment box is configured as long text and allows somewhere upwards of 30K characters so I feel it should be ok for now. 
Hi Sidhu - Three quick questions (on behalf of two customers that I'm working with):


(1) Is your official response here still the recommended way to 'sync CTAs' with Salesforce?  


(2) With minor modifications to these instructions, can sync them in progress (instead of just syncing closed CTAsfor historical tracking purposes)?


(3)  Is there out-of-the-box capability coming before the end of the year that would allow for tracking CTAs 'in flight' in Salesforce without having to follow this approach?  Thank you!  
I too have a customer asking about this functionality where Timeline is not a fit.  Anything further on this?
any update here ?