Success Plan FAQs
Gainsight NXT
This article supports Gainsight NXT, the next evolution of the Customer Success platform. If you are using Gainsight CS Salesforce Edition, you can find supporting documentation by visiting the home page, and selecting CS > Salesforce Edition.
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What are the use cases that Success Plans solve?
- Develop a plan for your company’s internal Goals to maintain and grow the account or tackle a project.
- Capture a customer’s Goals for your product during on-boarding and develop specific Objective CTAs to meet them.
- Get customer buy-in at key milestones. Present your Success Plan for your customer at your next QBR and get their buy-in on your approach.
- Success Plans combine a new Call To Action (CTA) type with a new Object to create Plans comprised of Objective CTAs and Tasks. Success Plans live on the C360 page and can be assigned ownership just like CTAs.
How do I understand the difference between CTA, Task, Playbook and Success Plan?
- Call to Action (CTA): A CTA is an alert which can be added manually by a user or automatically using business rules. There are five CTA types available by default: Risks, Opportunities/Expansions, Events/Lifecycle, Activities (from Timeline), and Objective CTAs (for Success Plans).
You can also create custom CTA types. Playbooks, and a collection of pre-defined tasks that can be used in conjunction with CTAs, to standardize the process a user follows when addressing a Call to Action. - Task: The smallest item is a Task. Tasks cannot live alone, they should always be a part of CTA.
- Playbooks: are the pre-configured sets of Tasks, that can be dropped into a CTA. The only function of a Playbook is to set up those Tasks, so that they can be easily applied to a CTA; a Playbook does not have any other functionality on its own.
- Success Plan: CTAs when grouped together is a Success Plan, where you can also add information about the purpose of the plan in both standard fields and custom fields.
The "Objective" Type of CTAs can only be added to a Success Plan; the "Objective" CTA Type is created specifically for this purpose (in any business plan, you would want a series of objectives). Pre-configured sets of Objective CTAs can be dropped into a Success Plan. They are called Success Plan Templates.
How do Objective CTAs differ from CTAs (structurally and theoretically)?
- Structurally, Objective CTAs and CTAs are records within the same Object (Call to Action), and have the same functionality.
- Theoretically, Objective CTAs have a goal associated with an organized plan to work with customers. Whereas, CTA is created to prompt an action in response to a specific situation or set of criteria present in a customer.
Who can setup Success Plan types/attributes/Objective CTA categories? Adjust the Attributes displayed? How are permissions for this setup?
- Success Plans can be set up by CS Ops or anyone with access to the Gainsight Admin tab on Success Plans.
- Any Gainsight NXT Full User having access to the Success Plans or C360/R360 pages can add or modify a Success Plan.
Are there any limits to Types, Attributes, or Objectives CTA categories that can be created? How many Success Plans or Objective CTAs a Customer can have?
- Admins can select a maximum of 20 fields for the layout characteristics under “Success Plan Info field configuration”.
- There are No limits on creating the number of Types, Attributes, or Objective CTAs categories.
- There are No limits on creating the number of Success Plans or Objective CTAs per customer.
Can Success Plans and Objective CTAs be viewed in Cockpit? Created/Edited from Cockpit?
- Success Plans are not viewable in Cockpit.
- Objective CTAs are visible in Cockpit (once the plan is set to “Active”), but cannot be created from Cockpit.
When should I use Success Plans vs. CTAs?
Success Plans are intended for long term multi-step executions that are not necessarily driven by an existing situation or event. They encompass high-level Goals/Objective CTAs for the Customer and typically have a longer timeframe for completion.
Examples:
- I want to prepare for an upcoming QBR or Exec Meeting -> CTA
- I want to develop goals and an action plan for my customer for this quarter -> Success Plan
- I want to ensure the handoff between Sales and Services happens for my customer -> CTA
- I want to record my customer’s goals with our products and services so that we can measure against them -> Success Plan
Can I report on Success Plans and Objective CTAs in Report Builder?
- Yes, you can create a report on Success Plans by reporting on the ‘Success Plan’ object.
- Yes, you can create a report on Objective CTAs by reporting on the ‘Call to Action’ object and applying a filter for ‘Type Name = Objective’.
Will I have the same functionality on an Objective CTA as I do on a CTA (Create different layouts by Objective Type)?
Objective CTAs have all the same features as CTAs, except they are tied to Objective CTA Categories, instead of a CTA Reason. They also have a Success Criteria field available in every Objective CTA.
Can I identify an overall owner for the Success Plan?
Yes, you can identify an overall owner in the Success Plan setup on the Success Plans or C360 page, as well as different Objective CTA and Task owners.
Is there a template available for Success Plans?
Yes, your admin can define Success Plan templates. You can use these templates for new Success Plans. For more information on how to apply templates to the Success Plan, refer to the Create Success Plan article.
Can I use Success Plans and Objective CTAs as criteria in Journey Orchestrator or the Rules Engine?
Yes, you can create a rule on Success Plans by using ‘Success Plan’ as your source object.
Yes, you can create a rule on Objective CTAs by using the ‘Call to Action’ object as your source object and applying a filter for ‘Type Name = Objective’
What is the Highlights' field for?
You are provided with three standard fields (Description, Action Plan, and Highlights) in the 'Plan Info' screen, which may help customers to define the scope of the plan. However, the layout can be customized, so Admins can rename these three fields and delete the fields. “Highlights” and “Action Plan”, if required.
Can I create Success Plans for Companies and Relationships?
Yes
Can Admins create Success Plans automatically for companies and relationships using the Rules Engine?
Yes
Why does my window go blank when I am attempting to share a success plan?
You might have included special characters in the Success Plan Name, remove the special characters and try again.
Can I (as an Admin) hide a Success Plan Type, as I do not want my users to use a particular Success Plan Type for some reason?
Yes, you can make a Success Plan type inactive from the Administration > Success Plan page. Once it is inactive, it will not be displayed in the Success Plan Type dropdown when creating a Success Plan.
Can I change the start and due dates of Objective CTAs by drag-and-drop method in the Gantt chart?
Yes
Can I configure dependencies between the end date of an Objective CTA and the start date of another Objective CTA in the Success Plan template?
Yes
Can I configure custom statuses for Success Plan from the admin page?
Yes
Can I add multiple Templates when creating a Success Plan through Rules Engine?
Yes
Is the Success Plans page contains all the Success Plans across the assigned Companies and Relationships?
Yes
Can we add dependencies between Objective CTAs while creating Success Plan templates?
Yes