Scheduling of Programs/AOs

  • 5 August 2018
  • 8 replies
  • 320 views
abhishek_sivaraman
Rank
Hi,



One of the use cases we have heard from customers is the ability to publish the program at a certain date and time. The current methodology we recommend is as follows which works well for Powerlist and Bionic Query sources - 




  • Configure the sources, steps , conditions etc.
  • Sync the participants and see whether the participants meet the criteria configured.
  • Clear participants and set schedule to the source/s and configure the date and time you want the participants to receive the email

  • Publish the advanced outreach.

However, there are two problems with the above approach -




  • We have seen that the admins are not confident/not aware to clear the participants and then publish the program. This leads to the emails being sent the moment publish happens since participants are synced already to the program.

  • CSV and Events as a source do not have the notion of schedule , so once a program is published , it immediately goes live and the emails are sent. This forces the admins to publish at the time they want to send the emails.

In order to address this , we are thinking of introducing scheduling in programs which will help 

the user to choose to if they wish to publish the program now or at a certain date and time.







Once the user chooses the date and saves the program, the program is then set to the state as Scheduled.





The program will then be published at the configured date and then the source schedule brings the data into the program.



[i]We are looking for feedback on the above proposal and guide us with respect to whether the above approach will meet the use case of  scheduling programs. [i]Are there any other use cases which you felt we have missed?



As we are in the early stages of this design, things might become flexible in the future based on other considerations or use cases. :) 

[i]





Thanks

Abhishek S

8 replies

lane_h
Rank
Userlevel 6
Badge +5
Thank you for  your work on this! I think this is a big step forward!


Director of CX and Scale Programs
diane_morneau
Rank
Badge
Thank you - many colleagues of this forum showed interest in the need to improve this 

https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/advanced-outreach-no-scheduler


faust_belarmino
Rank
Badge
YES. If outreaches could be scheduled, why not Programs?.. This definitely should be implemented!
cmultanen
Rank
Userlevel 4
Badge +1
This would be a great improvement! Any chance we could also have more advanced scheduling tools, specifically cron expressions?
kelly
Rank
Userlevel 6
Badge +2
Great but I would rather see the participant scheduler removed to become the program scheduler - you should be able to schedule everything at once, no? If participants could enter at various points of the journey it would make sense to keep a scheduler but as it stands, there is a single point of entry.



With this, I'd have to schedule a program start date and a participants query start date and daily run schedule.



That option should be removed with just a program scheduler, with the same menu as the participant scheduler.



-  Publish to run once, or at a defined scheduled (define the schedule)

-  Specify start date

-  Schedule/Save
brad_jennings
Yes yes yes yes. I know the advanced scheduler for rules does cron expression. I'd love to see it here as well, along with the basic scheduling options.
abhishek_sivaraman
Rank
Hi Kelly,



We have to think of the above use case as Publish Date for the program. This is the date when you want the program to be activated.



Source configuration and schedule is used to define how often you want to bring data into the program and add them as participants.  



We have seen use cases where customers define different schedules to the sources. This is especially useful to pause a source and stop bringing data into the program but allow the active participants to continue in the journey.



We have seen use cases where customers have published the AO and made it live with one source but configured to make the second source live after X days.



That is the reason why we have kept source schedule separate from program publish date even though I do understand it provides some additional complexity in your use case. Hope it helps!



Thanks

Abhishek S
abhishek_sivaraman
Rank
Hi Calvin and Brad,



Just to be clear, the above feature is only about publish date schedule.Think of this is the date when you want the program to be activated.



Once the AO/program is made active, the source schedule defines the cadence of bringing data into the program which we already have. That scheduler however, does not yet have the ability to include cron expressions. It is in the roadmap.



Hope that helps!



Thanks

Abhishek S

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings