Note Templates, Coming soon!


Hello Community!

We need your feedback!

Gainsight is introducing the most awaited Note Templates, a way to add templates in your Timeline Notes which makes it easier and faster to log Timeline activities.

Key Highlights

  1. A preview of the Template will be visible before Users apply it in the Notes.
  2. Users can modify the text from applied templates while writing the notes.
  3. Admins will be able to compose the Note templates in the Administration (Timeline).
  4. Admins will be able to align the created templates with different Activity Types. Hence, Users will apply templates available for the specific activity type they are creating.

Play the video to learn more.


23 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +8

Yay!  This is a long time ask of our CSMs.  Their original request was to be able to maintain their own templates, but this is a step in the right direction!

I’d like to see/hear more use cases on the entire business process using this capability. 

Few thoughts: This seems similar to the Chrome plugin where you can leverage email templates already created, but within Gainsight.  The advantage of sending emails using Chrome instead of directly from Gainsight is that we have email distributions for our customers built in Google that we can leverage.  From what I understand, Gainsight still does not have the concept of an email distribution (i.e. Company X Execs, Company X Implementation Team).  Thus we rarely send emails directly from Gainsight. 

Regarding templates, it’s easy today to copy and paste from the previous touchpoint meeting.  You get both the “template” and the previous issues discussed, which you can now check off (delete) or bring back up for the next conversation.  If you start from a generic meeting template, you’d have to refill information from the previous meeting.  

This would make a lot more business sense to me if:

  1. Gainsight enabled CSM’s to create distributions
  2. The template pulled in outstanding CTA’s for the customer. Otherwise, you have to transpose them from Cockpit to meeting note each time.  Then let the CSM decide what to keep or omit. 
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Do we have an ETA for which release this will be on?

Badge +1

Great news! When is it expected to be released?

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This is great news for standardizing updates! Aligning templates with activity types is highly valuable. 
 

Will the template types be reportable or searchable in the timeline? This would be helpful to quickly find similar updates and for Admins to understand which templates are being leveraged. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Nice! Some questions:

  • If you have multiple templates per activity type, how will the dropdown list be organized?
    • Can admins change the order in which they appear in any meaningful way e.g. group like templates together?
  • Can templates include tokens?
  • Can multiple templates be applied to the same entry?
  • Will Right to Left language support be available OOTB?
Userlevel 1

This is awesome! It would also be cool if when you select the template, certain attributes are applied to the activity fields on the right side of the entry.

 

Example: User selects a Call activity type and a ‘Renewal Discussion’ Timeline template. When the template is selected, it also defaults Call Reason field to ‘Renewal’.

@mprato @jriva This is in our near-term roadmap and we will be updating the release dates very soon.

@ashleyyoung in the Admin view, it will be possible to see the usage of templates. 

Regarding the search part, are you saying Users would want to search for keywords from specific templates too?

@bradley Hi, please find the replies and questions below - 

  • If you have multiple templates per activity type, how will the dropdown list be organized? --------For now, we are giving the ability to search for specific templates. 
    • Can admins change the order in which they appear in any meaningful way e.g. group like templates together?-------We can definitely look into this.
  • Can templates include tokens? -------We have not planned for this in the 1st release and we are looking into it for subsequent releases.
  • Can multiple templates be applied to the same entry?------Could you please tell us the use case when Users would want to apply multiple templates in the same Note?
  • Will Right to Left language support be available OOTB?--------Not in the initial release. We can look into this based on how many customers are looking for this feature.

@carolyndibuono Interesting point. Question around this - when users create a Call type activity, will they not select the Call Reason field first? I am guessing from your point that once they click on “Add Activity” they will first start filling Notes and then fill other fields. Is this assumption correct?

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

 

  • Can multiple templates be applied to the same entry?------Could you please tell us the use case when Users would want to apply multiple templates in the same Note?

I’m not sure - I just know someone would ask me that when this was live 🙂 Just off the top of my head though, instead of many similar different note templates (e.g. variations) you could have a basic template and some “add on” templates you’d have when the condition arises.

 

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@ashleyyoung in the Admin view, it will be possible to see the usage of templates. 

Regarding the search part, are you saying Users would want to search for keywords from specific templates too?

Yes - ideally its a unique search box similar to the Activity Type search on the Global Timeline, or available as an advanced filter. 

I plan to use these similar to Activity Type with a further breakdown by Templates. So rather than searching through all of the Risk Activity Types, I want to narrow that down by Risks that have a specific templated applied. 

Badge +2

This has been a huge ask from leadership and our CSMs, they will be so excited about it. Is this going to be available in SFDC and NXT? 

Userlevel 1

@carolyndibuono Interesting point. Question around this - when users create a Call type activity, will they not select the Call Reason field first? I am guessing from your point that once they click on “Add Activity” they will first start filling Notes and then fill other fields. Is this assumption correct?

Yes, your assumption is correct. If the Apply Template button is at the top of the Timeline activity, I think it is more likely the user will select this first and then move to the fields on the right side of the entry.

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That’s great! Will it be possible to automatically apply a template based on the Activity Type they choose or CSMs will always need to choose from the list? 

On our side, we currently have one activity type that will require the same template every time, having to choose it every time will be odd for the CSMs.

Hello everyone, we are going to have a VCAM to discuss all the inputs you may have. Please fill the form given in the link mentioned below, if you haven’t done so already.

 

Badge +1

Excited for this! It will be extremely useful for us as we have a structure to risk updates and handoff notes. Currently, CSMs have to copy paste the template every time. What is the ETA of this enhancement?

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Do you have a timeframe yet for when this will be released?

 

This is something we are SOOOOOO excited for!

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This is great! I think it will make Timeline even easier to use and expand the groups who would use it like an AE during a discovery call. 

I’d +1 the suggestion for having multiple templates on a single entry. Eg. Some meetings may start as a discovery session (template 2) but lead into a roadmap discussion (template 2) and having the ability to append a template onto an existing entry would make for a clean workflow.

@jake_ellis We will have to look into the requirement for adding multiple templates. Usually, when there are multiple templates required for a Note, it will mean that there is a need for a change in the content of the template. Nevertheless, do you think you will have frequent requirements for having multiple templates in a single call?

Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Currently we use Rules to create milestones when certain fields are changed, but the formatting gets removed when we apply the notes into one gigantic paragraph. 

 

Will the templates be able to be used when creating milestone timeline entries as well?

Userlevel 5
Badge +3

It would be great to set some tokens on the Timeline Note Templates from your account. 

 

For example, we want to set up a template for a “CSM Handoff” when the CSM changes. The leaving CSM will create, but we have some things like “ARR, Sentiment (custom fields on account,), renewal date” that we want pulled into one spot rather than the CSM going to different places. It would be great to be able to token and map like we are able to in Email Templates

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