Overview

Success Plans help CSMs monitor and drive success with individual customers based on objectives and criteria that you define. Success Plans use a Call to Action (CTA) type called Objectives. Success Plans may be composed of one or more Objective CTAs, and may include associated Tasks, either manually created or applied through Playbooks. 

In order to use Success Plans, Admins must configure Success Plans for the C360. In addition, Admins can Create Success Plans using Rules Engine.

To create or edit a Customer Success Plan, users will:

  • Enter Success Plan Info, including owner, status, type, company highlights, etc.

  • Apply a Template, or define Objectives for the plan (similar to creating CTAs today)

  • Add Playbooks or Tasks (optional)

You can also learn more about configuring and using Success Plans in our free self-paced elearning courses on Gainsight University.

Add a Success Plan

Add a Success Plan
  1. Navigate to the C360 for a customer.
  2. Click + Success Plan. (If there are no Success Plans for that customer, you will see a message that says, "No ongoing success plans yet! Create your plan now."
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  1. In the Add Success Plan window:
  • Enter a name for your Success Plan

Note: Ensure not to include any special characters in the Name. 

  • Select a Type for your Success Plan (types are configured by your Admin)
  • Select a Due Date
  1. Click SAVE.

Apply Template to Customer's Success Plan

If your Admin configures Success Plan templates, they will be available from the C360 > Success Plans section. Templates are specific to Success Plan types, so they will only display if you select a type with available templates.

  1. Click the icon with 3 dots > Apply Template, as shown in the image below.
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  1. From the Select Template drop-down box, select the template that you want to apply to the success plan; then click APPLY.

Note: Only templates created for the selected plan type will be available for selection. If the due date of an objective CTA or task exceeds the plan’s due date, a warning message will display and the overall plan’s due date will be updated to the objective CTA’s due date.

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After applying a template, users may manually edit or add Objective CTAs and tasks to the plan as needed.

Plan Info

Displayed at the top of the Plan Info page: (default layout is pictured above; Admins may re-name fields in the top section, as well as add custom fields)
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  • Under the three orange dots (far right), there's an option to Apply Template. If your Admin configured Success Plan templates for your plan type, you can apply a template, containing objectives and tasks.
  • You can see the current success plan name next to user name logo. You can change success plan for this customer in the More plans list.
  • Numbers of Completed, Overdue, and Trending Overdue Objectives
  • Status: change the status of the plan
    • Draft - the default plan status; objective CTAs are not visible in the Cockpit
    • Closed - all objectives and tasks will be automatically closed
    • Active - changing the plan to Active causes the objective CTAs to become visible in Cockpit

Notes:

  • Once you change the plan's status from Draft to Active, you can not set it back to Draft.
  • It is important to update the plan status to Active if you want to see the objective CTA's and any associated tasks in Cockpit.
  • Due date: Select the overall plan's Due date.
  • Owner: Change the overall plan's Owner at far left. (by default, the owner is the user creating the plan)
  • Delete Success Plan: This option is available under the three orange dots. Deleting a Success Plan in this way acts as a soft delete where the Success Plan still exists on the backend of the Gainsight system. To complete a hard delete of the Success Plan, reach out to Gainsight Support for assistance.
  • Details section: Plan Name and Type fields are completed based on your previous selections. Additional text fields are optional.

Click Edit icon to add or edit the following text fields:

  • Description: 1500 character limit
  • Company Highlights
  • Action Plan: you may enter your goals/objectives here, or you can track objectives using CTAs on the Objectives tab.

Notes:

  1. You can manually enter text in the above fields.
  2. You can copy the content from a source to these text areas.
  3. Rich text formatting is allowed in the above text areas.
  • Other section: Information fields display at the bottom of the Plan Info page. Admins can configure the Information fields to display. Click the Edit icon to change or modify the editable fields in this section.

Objectives List View

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From the Objectives tab, click +OBJECTIVE to create a new Objective. Objectives are a new type of CTA.

Once you create Objective CTAs, they'll display in a view similar to the Cockpit List View. See Manage Objective CTAs for more info.

Users can also sort the Objectives by their Names. To sort by Names, select Name from the Sort By dropdown list. This will sort the Objectives in ascending order, if required CSM can change the order.

If a Success Plan has a list of objectives, whose names include numbers before the name, when you sort by Name, the objectives that include numbers are displayed first, followed by the remaining objectives.

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Add Objectives

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In the Add Objective window, enter/select the following info:

  • Subject: this is the name of the Call to Action (CTA)
  • Success Criteria: defines how you will measure success with this objective CTA (1000 character limit)
  • Category: Objective CTA category
  • Customer: This is read only field. It shows customer of the current success plan.
  • Owner: assign to yourself or another user
  • Associate Contacts: option to add customer contacts to associate with the CTA
  • Due Date: may be different from the Plan due date
  • Status: Set the status of this CTA
  • Priority: Set the priority of this CTA
  • Comments: optional
  • Select a Playbook: (Optional) You can select a playbook or choose not to select one. If playbook is selected, all tasks assigned to the objective will be created automatically.

Note: If a playbook is applied to an objective CTA, you can only change the owner of a task, while creating an objective using a playbook.

Click SAVE, or click SAVE AND NEW to open another dialog to create another CTA.

Note: Currently, you can see the Start Date of the CTA Objectives and tasks only on the Gantt Chart tab.

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Manage Objective CTAs

After you create Objectives, you can manage them in the Objectives List View, or from the Cockpit List View. All of the same functionality is available on the Objectives List View as in Cockpit. You can apply/replace a Playbook* to an Objective CTA, create manual tasks**, add milestones, use Snooze (if it's enabled), manage owners, priority and status, etc.

Notes:

  • *Playbooks must be set to work with All CTA types in order to be available to Objective CTAs.
  • ** Tasks may be synced with SFDC if the Plan is in an Active state.
  • You can only create Objective CTAs within Success Plans; you can't create them directly in Cockpit.
  • If you close a Success Plan, all of the associated Objectives and Tasks will be closed. To make changes, you must change the plan's status back to Active.
  • Admins can configure the CTA detail view for Objective CTA types. For more information, refer Configure Cockpit: CTA Types, Reasons, Priority, etc.

Gantt Chart

Gantt Chart is integrated with Success Plans and provides a graphical view of the progress towards objectives and associated tasks against the schedule.

Note: By default, the start date for the CTA objectives and tasks begin at the respective created date. But CSMs have the ability to modify the Start Date from the Gantt Chart tab, based on their requirement.

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For more information on Gantt Chart integration, refer Gantt Chart integration in Success Plans.

Collaboration

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From the Collaboration page, users can share and view Chatter posts specific to a Success Plan. These posts are only visible within the Success Plan and on the Account, assuming Chatter is enabled at the Account level.

Notifications

Notifications
  • If A Success Plan is assigned to me is selected, you will receive a notification when a success plan gets assigned to you.
  • If My Success Plan’s due date is changed is selected and the plan is in an Active status, the plan owner will be notified by email, if Notifications are enabled for that user. The overall plan due date may be changed due to changes in its objective due dates, task due dates, or when a playbook is applied.
  • If A CTA is assigned to me is selected, then users will be notified of any Success Plan CTA Objectives are assigned to them.

To enable notifications, navigate to the Customer tab > My Notification Settings and enable “My success plan due date is changed.” For information on how to modify Notification Settings, refer Configure Internal User Email Notifications.

Exporting Success Plans

Refer to the Exporting Success Plans article for instructions on how to export your plan using a Success Snapshot template.

Sharing Success Plans

You can share a read-only Success Plans as a link with an internal user or to external contacts via email. Use this option to share an individual Success Plan. The Success Plan must be configured for sharing by the admin, with optional security settings. In C360 > Success Plan section > Under the three dots, an option is added which enables you to share a Success Plan. Once you click the Share Plan option, the Success Plan Export Configuration pane is displayed.

For information on how to configure a Success Plan for sharing (admin), refer to the Configure Success Plan for Sharing article.

For information on how to share the Success Plan (CSM/User), refer to the Share Success Plan article.

Known Issue

The scroll bar does not work for the rich text fields if the Success Plan is moved to a closed state in the Completed tab. Hence, you might not view the complete information in these fields. As a workaround, you can zoom out or create a report to view complete details.

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