Gainsight NXT FAQs

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What is Gainsight NXT?

Gainsight NXT (pronounced Next) is the next evolution of our product that extends our technology to make Gainsight faster, more flexible, and better looking than the version our customers know and love.

It keeps the advantages of Gainsight’s architecture you’re familiar with, while delivering five new benefits outlined below.

Who came up with the name NXT?

What can we say, our CMO likes capital letters and has a thing against vowels.

What benefits does NXT offer to existing Gainsight customers?

Gainsight NXT is the latest evolution of our industry leading customer success platform. Built upon the existing technology that has powered Gainsight for over six years, NXT offers new capabilities beyond what our users know and love today. We solve our customer’s toughest operational challenges with NXT Technology.

Innovative: Cutting-edge technology powers an expanded roadmap of innovative capabilities
New UI/UX: Optimized user experience for better adoption with refreshed design and more intuitive navigation
Independent: Fully independent administration so you can achieve faster time to value
Easy to Scale: User access is now independent of CRM access to make it easy to share Gainsight with everyone who needs it
Flexible: Flexible CRM integration options allow for easily adapting to future tech-stack changes

Does this mean Gainsight is introducing a new platform?

No, Gainsight NXT is built on the same platform (known as the Matrix Data Architecture (MDA)) that has been the foundation of the Gainsight product since 2014. The MDA is a seamless extension of the user experience we provide in Salesforce and is where we do the majority of our data storage and processing. In fact, our core features like Timeline and Journey Orchestrator were built from the ground-up on this platform. So, all of Gainsight’s 500+ customers have been using this platform every day for five years.

What does this mean for how Gainsight works with Salesforce?

Because of our close partnership with Salesforce and the fact that nearly 85% of our customers also use Salesforce, we will continue to offer the same world-class system integration between Salesforce and Gainsight that our customers highly value.

We also know that Customer Success is not a movement that’s isolated to the Salesforce ecosystem. To include these companies in our Customer Success community, we will be introducing robust integrations to other CRMs, starting with Microsoft Dynamics 365.

How can I tell if I am using NXT or Salesforce Edition?

Check out this article to determine if your environment is currently NXT or Salesforce Edition.

Will there be a cost implication for existing customers?

No, our subscription pricing for NXT will remain aligned to our previous pricing structure. As always, we encourage you to discuss the specifics of your contract with your Gainsight Account Executive or Client Outcomes Manager.

In terms of the upgrade process, Gainsight will be investing all technical work needed to upgrade to NXT. We will be offering three packages that pair this technical investment with different levels of service according to your organization’s needs.

Can you tell me more about the NXT Salesforce experience?

Sure! All the goodness that our customers valued about how Gainsight and Salesforce work together before will work the same way in NXT:

User Access: Users who hold both a Salesforce & Gainsight License can continue to access Gainsight through their Salesforce Login. For Gainsight Viewer/Limited License Holders, they will continue to see the Gainsight Widget on the Salesforce Account, Opportunity and Case Pages. For Gainsight Full License Holders, they will continue to have full read/write access to all of Gainsight’s UI in Salesforce.
Data Sharing & Sync: Users who hold both a Salesforce & Gainsight License will continue to have native access to both Salesforce & Gainsight data through the Gainsight UI in Salesforce. For example, the way you can display a report of Salesforce Opportunities on your Gainsight 360 Page remains unchanged. Your Admin will also still be able to build rules and reports on combined Salesforce and Gainsight data without data synchronization.

What will be different:

For Full Gainsight License Holders accessing through Salesforce, the Gainsight UI will appear as a single tab in Salesforce (as opposed to multiple Gainsight tabs). You will be able to navigate between Gainsight pages using a left-hand navigation bar instead of clicking between Salesforce tabs. We think you’ll like the change!

Will my Gainsight Users need to hold a Salesforce License?

Gainsight users will need to hold a Salesforce License if (and only if) they intend to access native/live Salesforce data within the Gainsight UI. For example, they will need a Salesforce License to view Salesforce Case records on the 360 View, view a report on Salesforce Opportunity records, or link a Call-to-Action to a Salesforce Contact.

What about my Gainsight users who don’t hold a Salesforce License?

If you have Gainsight users who do not have access to Salesforce, they no longer have to bother with the Salesforce login process. They will be setup with a Gainsight Login and username and will log into Gainsight NXT through Direct Gainsight Login.

These users will be able to access Salesforce data that’s been integrated into Gainsight via our Salesforce Connector. And any modifications that these users make to Salesforce data can be pushed back to Salesforce to keep your data in sync.

Can you tell me more about the NXT Microsoft Dynamics 365 experience?

Why, of course! Our integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 (and our future CRM integrations) will mirror what we’ve done with Salesforce. The integration works with the Cloud version of Dynamics Sales, Service and Marketing Clouds and will include:

User Access: Users who hold both a Microsoft Dynamics and Gainsight license can access Gainsight UI within Microsoft. Right now, Gainsight Viewer License holders can access the Gainsight Widget on the Account or Opportunity Form. In the future, Gainsight Full License holders will have full read/write access to Gainsight’s UI in Dynamics (stay tuned – it’s coming soon!).
Data Sharing & Sync: Our productized connector will pull in Company, Contact and User data from Dynamics into Gainsight.

How can I start using NXT?

We are now scheduling upgrades for 2022. If you’re interested in upgrading, please contact your Client Outcomes Manager. Here’s some more questions we think you might have as an existing customer:

What does a general upgrade path look like and how long does it take? The upgrade path and timeframe are determined by your environment specifics (i.e., features configured, volume of data). Gainsight services will do an initial assessment of your environment and then recommend a plan to get your new NXT deployment up and running with your existing configuration and data as well as transition your users.
Will there be any downtime as part of the transition? We’ve designed our upgrade process to be as minimally disruptive as possible. A new NXT environment will be stood up in parallel with your current Gainsight environment to act like a ‘Sandbox’. Only once your admin validates and signs-off on the new NXT environment will we transition over your users.
- For Users: Throughout the project, users can continue to use Gainsight uninterrupted until we are ready to launch the new Gainsight NXT instance. We need at least 12 hours (or more, depending on instance size) of user downtime to perform the final data copy (typically scheduled outside of business hours the night/morning prior to the day of launch).
- For Admins: There is a required 3 - 4 week administrative freeze during your upgrade project where no new modifications to your Gainsight setup can be made. We ask for this freeze so there is no change to Gainsight’s metadata during the upgrade processes. Rules, Journey Orchestrator Programs, Surveys, and all existing configuration can continue to be executed during this time.

Are there any implications to Gainsight’s Security Certifications or protocols? Do I need to bring in my IT team again?

Since NXT doesn’t use any new or different components than before, all our enterprise-grade security practices and certifications that customers have vetted before still apply to NXT. But we are happy to meet with the IT team to walk through what’s changing and share our Security Whitepaper and certifications.

Will Gainsight continue to release enhancements and new features to Salesforce Edition?

Gainsight will continue to release enhancements to Salesforce Edition for the foreseeable future. There will be some instances where the technical requirements of a new feature will dictate that it’s only offered on NXT and we’ll call those out clearly in our documentation. When it makes sense for our existing customer base, we will start to release enhancements exclusively to NXT. NXT is the future for Gainsight and we’re very excited about what this next phase of our platform evolution holds for the Customer Success community.