Gainsight CS Release Notes July 2024

 360 in Sidebar

Gainsight introduces 360 in Sidebar, a simplified version of Customer 360 (C360) and Relationship 360 (R360) in Gainsight. Main C360 is being rendered in the sidebar with additional customization capabilities to make the user experience for CSMs more seamless and frictionless.

Key Features and Functionalities:

• User Preference:
  • Admins can switch on the 360 in Sidebar toggle to activate this feature for their CSMs following the major release in July.
    Note: The 360 in Sidebar feature will automatically be enabled for all CSMs after August 24, 2024.
  • Users can navigate from 360 in Sidebar to the full C/R 360 view in a new tab if needed.
• Familiar Interface:
  • The layout configured for the main C360 is applied to 360 in Sidebar, maintaining a familiar interface for admins and users and reducing the learning curve.
  • Opens in a slide-out panel on the same screen, regardless of where the 360 link is clicked such as Reports, Dashboards, GS Home, Global Timeline, and so on.
    Note: The global search bar results will continue to open in Main 360.
• Customizable Summary Section:
  • Displays a quick overview of the first five sections pinned by users from C360, with options to view/modify additional sections.
  • Users can customize and pin the most important widgets they refer to daily.
• Quick Actions:
  • Allows users to quickly create CTAs, log Timeline Activities, and perform other actions directly from the 360 in Sidebar.
  • Enables immediate action on customer data without leaving the current screen.

To deactivate 360 in Sidebar, navigate to Administration > C360 Layouts page.

For more information on how to configure 360 in Sidebar, refer to the 360 in Sidebar article.

 Key Dates in Customer Journey Widget

Gainsight is excited to announce a significant update to the Customer Journey widget within the 360 layouts. This update enhances the functionality of the Key Dates feature, providing greater flexibility and customization options for both the Admins and end-users.

Key Changes: 

• Limits: Admins can now select up to 30 key dates, previously the limit was only three Key dates.

This increase enables for more comprehensive tracking of important milestones and events providing a richer and more detailed customer journey overview.

Push Emails to Gainsight Timeline with Activity Type and Call Duration

IMPORTANT: This feature will be available on August  24, 2024, along with all the relevant documents (new and updated).

We are excited to announce a significant improvement to the Timeline email integration, aimed at enhancing user efficiency and satisfaction. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) were unable to choose the Activity Type when pushing emails into Gainsight as Timeline entries. This limitation defaulted the entry to the first Activity Type in the Admin configuration, leading to manual corrections and reduced productivity.
With this update, CSMs can now select the Activity Type and Call Duration when pushing emails as Timeline activities. This change simplifies the process and boosts overall productivity.

Key Enhancements:

• Activity Type Selection: CSMs can now choose the appropriate Activity Type when adding emails to the Timeline, eliminating the need for manual corrections.
• Call Duration Addition: The ability to add Call Duration provides more detailed and accurate logging of activities.

These enhancements streamline the workflow, allowing CSMs to focus more on customer engagement and less on administrative tasks.

 Gainsight Home Design Improvements

Gainsight is thrilled to announce the redesigned Gainsight Home, focusing on enhancing actionability and user experience.

Key Benefits:

• Enhanced Icons and Colors: Summary widgets now feature vibrant icons and colors for better visual differentiation.
• Detailed Drill-Down Experience: New drill-down functionality provides comprehensive insights into KPIs and attributes, allowing users to access more detailed information with ease.
• In-Depth Data Insights: The enhanced slide-out panel offers a deeper understanding of KPIs and attributes, making data analysis more intuitive and detailed.
• Widget Design Enhancements: Various widgets now feature rounded corners and subtle drop shadows, improving usability and visual appeal.

 Enhanced Inline Editing Capabilities: Broader Object Support and Lookup Field Editing

IMPORTANT: This feature will be available on August  24, 2024, along with all the relevant documents (new and updated).

Inline editing now supports direct update to lookup fields and five additional standard objects: Company, Relationship, Person, Relationship Person, and Company Person. This enhancement allows CSMs to edit a broader range of objects inline and make changes directly within lookup fields, improving the editing process, efficiency, and usability.

• Named Lookup Fields: When you change the value of a named lookup field, all related records are comprehensively updated. For Example: If you change a CSM ID from A to B, all details associated with A are updated to match those of B.
• Non-Named Lookup Fields: When you change the value of a non-named lookup field, only the specific field value is updated without affecting other related details. For example: If you edit the CSM email ID, only the email ID is updated in all relevant records, while other columns or fields in that record remain unchanged.

 Gainsight’s Cross Product Out-of-the-box Reports and Dashboards

IMPORTANT: This enhancement will be available on August  24, 2024, along with all the relevant documents (new and updated).

Gainsight introduces out-of-the-box dashboards designed to provide comprehensive insights by integrating data across Gainsight's Customer Success (CS), Customer Education (CE), and Customer Communities (CC) products. These dashboards empower users with valuable, unified data points, enhancing their ability to efficiently manage customer success activities such as value delivery, churn prediction, renewal, and expansion.

Key Features:

• Unified Insights: Combines data from CS, CE, and CC, offering a holistic view of the customer journey.
• Comprehensive Visibility: Helps CSMs manage their book of business by showcasing relevant data points and insights.
• Efficiency in CS Activities: Enables efficient handling of key customer success activities by providing the right data at the fingertips.
• Enhanced Decision Making: Facilitates better decision-making processes for churn prediction, renewal, and expansion strategies.

 Auto-Populating External Attendee Field in P360 Timeline Activity

Gainsight introduces automation in  the activity composer in P360 Timeline, reducing manual effort and enhancing user efficiency. The External Attendee field is now automatically populated based on the Company or  Relationship P360 context. This improvement addresses the automation demand by pre-populating the values when logging timeline entries, thus cutting down on the number of clicks required and simplifying the activity creation process.

Key Benefits:

• Time-Saving: Eliminates the need for manual entry, decreasing the number of required clicks and saving users’ time.
• Improved Accuracy: Ensures the correct attendee is added based on the P360 context.

 Enhanced AI Follow-up (fka Meeting Assist) Prompts

We are thrilled to announce major enhancements to our AI follow-up prompts, designed to boost adoption and elevate customer satisfaction.

Key Enhancements:

• Concise and Relevant Summaries:
  • Summaries will now focus on up to 20 key decision points, ensuring clarity and relevance.
  • Summary lengths auto-adjust based on call duration, providing tailored content. For example, a 30-minute call might result in a concise 5 to 6 essential points summary, while longer calls could have up to 20 points.
• Streamlined and Efficient Action Items:
  • Action items are now more focused, eliminating redundancy.
  • Only tasks assigned to CSMs or internal stakeholders are displayed, enhancing efficient follow-up and effectiveness.
• Enhanced Sentiment Analysis:
  • We now leverage key indicators like word choice, expression, and feedback intensity.
  • Integration with the Chat-GPT model ensures accurate sentiment analysis, improving the overall quality of interactions.

Positive Impact: CSMs can enjoy a more efficient follow-up process with clear, actionable items and precise sentiment analysis, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and a better overall experience.

 Default Activity Types for C360 and R360 Pages

Gainsight has enhanced the consistency of the global Create Activity button and the timeline-specific Add Activity button in C360 and R360. With this release, both bring up the same composer screen for a seamless user experience. Previously, the default activity type was always set to Update regardless of recent interactions. With this release, the Activity Type field dynamically pre-populates the activity type based on historical data, ensuring the most common activity type for a specific company or relationship, such as Meeting, Call or Emails, is automatically selected. This update applies to the C360 and R360 pages.

For more information, refer to the Log an Activity section of the Log Activities to Timeline article.

 Enhanced Gong Integration with Calendar Activities

With this release, Gainsight has re-enabled the merging of Gong calls with activities created in your calendar. This update ensures that calendar-published activities maintain their logged status, preventing duplicate entries in the timeline. The result is improved efficiency and accuracy in the activity tracking process for CSMs.

For more information, refer to the Activities Merge Logic section in the Access Gong Activities article.

  Character Limit Restriction for Timeline Notes

Admins and end-users can now capture more data in the notes section of the Timeline Activity composer. The character limit for the notes section increases to 131,000 characters, allowing for detailed information from any integration area, such as Salesforce, Gong, Email to Gainsight, and others.

 Enhanced Customer Journey Widget with Increased Key Date Capacity

Admins can now configure up to 30 key dates in the Customer Journey (CJ) widget in C360 and R360. This update significantly increases the previous limit of three key dates, providing greater flexibility and detail in tracking important customer milestones.

  Filter Reports based on Activity Sentiment Field

In this release, Gainsight introduces a streamlined method for CSMs to generate reports on meetings categorized by sentiment for any particular period. Activity Sentiment applies to both milestone activities and meetings. If a user wants to view only meetings with a red sentiment, they need to filter the Source field by Gong IO/Zoom. This new feature simplifies the identification and reporting of meetings based on their sentiment status.

 Calculated field support in Owner field and Associated Person field of CTA

Gainsight introduces calculated fields in Journey Orchestrators. Admins can now utilize calculated fields within the Owner and Associated Person fields, as well as source fields in the CTA step, enhancing data management and accuracy.

They can also use calculated fields of ID data types, including GSID, Lookup, SFDC ID, and Who ID, ensuring relevant data is easily accessible.

It is ensured that calculated fields are resolved consistently and accurately within the context of programs to improve reliability and performance.

 Change in Functionality: Match Criteria Field Editing

Fields defined as Match Criteria (in the People Admin screen) have now been non-editable by default in various sections of the application.

Affected Areas:

• C/R360 People Section
• Inline editing of reports
• Any other sections where People records are editable

Key Points:

• Default Non-Editable: Fields set as Match Criteria cannot be edited by default.
• No Editable Setting: There is no option available to make these fields editable.
• Modification: To enable editing, you must remove the fields as Match Criteria.

This change is intended to ensure data integrity and consistency across the application.

 Independent Data Synchronization for Renewal Center and Customer Success Qualified Leads

IMPORTANT: With the release of this enhancement, the synchronization configuration for existing Renewal Center (RC) and Customer Success Qualified Leads (CSQL) customers remains the same as the configuration selected prior to this release. For example, if the customer uses the Gainsight configuration, the same configuration is selected independently for both RC and CSQL. The same applies if the Salesforce configuration is selected. Existing customers can change the configuration if required.  The synchronization configuration is preconfigured to Gainsight for new RC and CSQL customers onboarded with or after this release.

Gainsight admins can now independently configure the synchronization options in CSQL and RC.

Key Benefits

• Independent Data Sync: Allows admins to create and manage RC and CSQL data flows within Gainsight or with Salesforce independently.
• Better Flexibility: Empowers admins to create RC and CSQL data flows based on business requirements, instead of being forced to make decisions due to tightly coupled data sync configuration.
• Better Opportunity Visualization: Provides a clear distinction in the CS Qualified Leads table in 360 and the widget in GS Home. When the sync to Salesforce as opportunities synchronization option is selected in the CSQL admin, the table and widget only display opportunities created by CSMs using the Create CSQL button.
• Easier Sync Switch:  Allows admins to easily switch synchronization options in RC without deleting lead records and in CSQL without deleting opportunity records.
• Eliminate Unintended Data Sync: Prevents unintended updates to Salesforce opportunity data when using only CSQL with sync to Salesforce as leads configuration.

Consider the image below, data in CSQL is set to sync with Salesforce whereas data in RC is set to sync with Gainsight. Both configurations are independent and do not impact each other's data flow.

• CSQLs > Sync Options > Salesforce: Qualified leads data syncs as opportunities with Salesforce. Updates made in Gainsight CSQL opportunities reflect in Salesforce opportunities.
• Renewal Center > Sync Options > Gainsight: Opportunity data syncs only within Gainsight. Updates made in Gainsight do not reflect in the Salesforce opportunity.

Furthermore, this enhancement allows admins to change Sync Options in CSQL and RC without deleting both opportunity records and lead records, respectively. For example, if you want to change the Sync Option in CSQL from Gainsight to Salesforce, you only need to delete lead records from Data Operations to initiate the switch, unlike before, where you had to delete both lead and opportunity records. Similarly, to change the Sync Option in Renewal Center, you are not required to delete opportunity and lead records created from CSQL.

Note:

• A standard field, Source Type, in the GS Opportunity object identifies whether the opportunity is created from RC or CSQL features. The values stored in this standard field are CSQL and OPPORTUNITY. For example, for opportunities created from CSQL, the value in this field is populated with CSQL. For opportunities created or loaded via RC, Connectors, Rules Engine, C/R 360, or CTAs, the value in this field is populated with OPPORTUNITY.
• When an opportunity is updated, Gainsight checks the source from where the opportunity was originally created or loaded. If the opportunity source is CSQL, then the synchronization options configured in the CSQL admin are followed. If the opportunity source is RC, Connectors, Rules Engine, C/R360, or CTAs, then the synchronization options configured in the RC admin are followed.

For more information on how to configure Sync Options in CSQL, refer to the Configure Sync Options section of the Configure CSQL article.

For more information on how to configure Sync Options in RC, refer to the Sync Options section of the Configure Renewal Center article.

 Rules Templates on CE/CC/PX data

Gainisght introduces a beta feature with four new cross-product (PX, CC, and CE) templates for multi-product customers to drive outcomes or take actions based on metrics across products. They are designed to enhance customer product adoption tracking, feature usage, learner engagement, and community engagement.

These templates provide valuable insights and automate risk identification to ensure optimal product utilization and customer satisfaction.

IMPORTANT: These templates are installed only if the relevant product (PX, CC, and CE) is purchased and a connection is established.

The following four set score rule action templates are available:

1. Product Adoption Score Measure (PX) This template allows admins to set and update the Product Adoption score by tracking active users over a specified period.
   Benefits:
   • Organizations can gain accurate insights into adoption rates and user engagement.
   • This enables data-driven decisions to improve product usage and customer satisfaction.
     
     
2. Admin Adoption Risk (CE) This template allows admins to create a Call to Action (CTA) for companies with few certified users.
   Benefits:
   • It helps organizations address adoption risks by notifying CSMs when a company drops below a certification threshold. If there are fewer certified users of a product in an organization, it could lead to lower product adoption.
   • This enables CSMs to take timely actions using predefined playbooks to improve certification rates, enhance customer engagement, and reduce adoption risks.
     
     
3. User Engagement Measure (CE) The new template allows admins to set and update the User Education Engagement score based on course enrollments in CE.
   Benefits:
   • This feature improves engagement metrics using real-time CE Learning Progress scorecard enrollment data.
   • Organizations can better monitor and enhance their educational programs, ensuring a more engaged and educated user base.
     
     
4. Community Engagement Risk (CC) This template allows admins to create a CTA when end-user interactions in the community significantly drops over a specified period.
   Benefits:
   • It helps organizations quickly identify and address engagement risks. When interactions decrease, a CTA is assigned to the CSM.
   • This proactive approach maintains high user engagement and an active community.
     
     

These four new templates help you monitor product and feature adoption, maintain certification levels, and adapt an active community. This enables proactive risk management, better customer support, and product optimization.

 Enhanced Databricks Connector with Writeback Capabilities

Gainsight has enhanced the Databricks connector to support writeback capabilities, allowing seamless data synchronization between systems. With the new Load to Databricks action, users can organize data within Gainsight using Data Designer or Rules Engine and write it back to Databricks tables, ensuring data consistency and up-to-date information across platforms.

IMPORTANT: Databricks is discontinuing support for basic authentication. To avoid potential job failures, please update your authentication method from basic auth to OAuth as soon as possible. This change is necessary to ensure the continued functionality of your Databricks connector.

Key Benefits:

• Enhanced Data-Driven Decision Making: Combining Customer Success (CS) touchpoints with enterprise data provides comprehensive insights into customer behavior, satisfaction, and product usage.
• Improved Customer Experience: Integrating CS data with Databricks helps identify patterns in customer interactions, enabling proactive and personalized service. Enterprises can develop predictive models to anticipate customer needs, enhancing satisfaction and retention.
• Streamlined Operations: Integrating CS data with Databricks breaks down data silos, making all customer information accessible on a single platform. This integration streamlines workflows across departments like sales, marketing, and support, leading to more efficient operations and better resource allocation.

For more information on how to write back to Databricks, refer to the Load to Databricks Action Type article.

 Re-Authorization Required for Specific Connectors

IMPORTANT: Admins can upgrade the Zuora and Intercom Connector from July 27, 2024, and the Zendesk connector from August 24, 2024.

Gainsight is upgrading the connectors to enhance performance and bringing in critical upgrades. As a result, with this release, the following connectors need to be updated:

• Zendesk:
  • Admins need to re-authorize the Zendesk connector. Once the Re-authorization is done, jobs continue to run as the new APIs are invoked
  • Once re-authorization is done, users need to re-link Gainsight widget in Zendesk.
• Intercom: Admins need to authorize Intercom V2 Connector and re-create the jobs.
• Zuora: Admins need to authorize the Zuora V2 Connector and re-create the jobs.

 Enhanced PX-CS Integration

IMPORTANT: This enhancement will be available on Augus t 24, 2024, along with all the relevant documents (new and updated).

Gainsight enhances PX-CS integration by introducing snapshotting of data in platform usage objects.

• Feature Usage Aggregate Data Snapshots: Admins can now snapshot usage data to analyze daily feature usage trends, create detailed reports, and improve customer journey insights.

The following new data sets are introduced to ingest data from PX into Gainsight:

• User Level Usage Data Snapshots: Enables tracking of individual user interactions to tailor customer experiences based on user behavior.
• User Level Engagement Data Snapshots: Facilitates monitoring of daily engagement metrics to refine customer engagement strategies.

Key Benefits:

• Supports 1-day usage data snapshots, in addition to existing 7,  and 30-day options, providing more detailed insights.
• Daily data snapshots enable precise trend analysis and better visualization in 360 views.
• Backfill of data for the last 30 days.

 New Datasets From Community (Upvotes, Badges)

						IMPORTANT: This enhancement will be available on August 24, 2024, along with all the relevant documents (new and updated).

Gainsight now introduces new datasets from Customer Community (CC) into Customer Success (CS).

• #Upvotes: Measure the popularity and support for ideas with upvote counts with company level details.
• Badge: Identify and recognize community user achievements and engagement levels.

Key Features: With these datasets, Gainsight provides out-of-the-box Dashboards to enhance visibility, improve efficiency in CS Activities, and enhance decision making.

 Load Data from any Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool into Gainsight’s Standard Opportunity Objects

		IMPORTANT: This enhancement will be available on July 23, 2024, for EU and US2 customers.

Gainsight now enables administrators to load data into standard opportunity objects from any external customer relationship management systems (CRMs) such as HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, and so on.

How does it benefit administrators?

Gainsight administrators can now directly pull deals or opportunities data into the standard opportunity objects instead of spending time creating custom objects and configuring rules. This enhancement allows admins to:

• Select standard opportunity objects as the destination when creating and running connector jobs. 
• Use these objects to generate reports such as Gross and Net Revenue Retention to study renewals and churns, and make informed decisions.

Which CRMs and standard opportunity objects are supported?

• Supported CRMs: HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, or any other CRM used by the organization.
• Supported standard opportunity objects: GS Opportunity, GS Opportunity Stage, GS Opportunity Line Item, GS Pricebook, GS Pricebook Entry, Record Type, and Product.

Note:

• Out-of-the-box connector jobs for standard opportunity objects are not available for any external CRM except Salesforce.
• To avoid job failures, run the Company, Company Person, and User sync jobs before running any connector job to load data into the standard opportunity object.
• For any opportunity created using Connectors from any external CRMs, the value in the Opportunity Source field of the GS Opportunity object is populated as CONNECTOR_{CRM Name}. For example, for an opportunity created from an SFDC Connector job, the value is populated as "CONNECTOR_SFDC".

For more information on how to create a new job using external CRM systems, refer to the CRM Integrations article.

 Improved Single Sign-on (SSO) Experience for CS Users

We are excited to introduce user experience enhancements in SSO, improving configuration management for admins and enhancing the login experience for users. These enhancements are applicable only to tenants where the SSO configuration is enabled.

What’s Changed?

• Enhanced Warning Messages for SAML Configuration: Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) configurations impact all product instances connected with the tenant. To prevent accidental modifications, an additional layer of warning messages helps admins avoid making unintended changes.

  Note: Warning messages are not displayed for customers with access to only one instance.
  
  Consider the image below, admin makes changes in SAML configuration and proceeds to save the changes. They receive a warning message asking for confirmation and can opt to click I Understand to proceed.
  
  

• Improved Login Experience for Multi-Instance Access: Users logging in are prompted to select the product instance they want to access instead of automatic login to the last used instance. This removes confusion for users with access to multiple products and delivers a clearer, more intuitive login process.
  
  Note: Admins can restore the default configuration from the Settings page, to automatically redirect users to their last-used instance.
  
  Consider the image below, admin selects the Give users the option to choose which instance to log into configuration. When users log in to their  accounts, they are prompted to select the product and the instance they want to access.
  
  

For more information, refer to the Single Sign-On (SSO) for Gainsight Application article.

 Ability for Admin to login as a User

Gainsight introduces the ability to login as users to Admins. It focuses on enhancing the admin experience to streamline issue resolution and user support, as well as ensuring secure and accurate access for users.

Enhanced Troubleshooting and Support: Admins can now efficiently understand and troubleshoot user issues. Previously, resolving even minor issues required extensive back-and-forth screenshot sharing between admins and users, consuming considerable time. With this enhancement, admins can quickly identify the root cause and provide timely guidance, significantly reducing resolution times.

Partner User Access and Security: Admins can now set up partner users with the assurance that security is a priority. To ensure partners receive the correct access, admins can log in as a partner and test configurations before partner users access the product. This enhancement allows admins to verify that everything is set up correctly, providing peace of mind and enhanced security for partner user access.

Note: This feature is only available for SSO-enabled tenants and is applicable to super admins. It is shown only in NXT login, not in the Hybrid edition.

For more information on how to login a user, refer to the Gainsight User Management article.

 Differentiation between CS Production and Sandbox

Gainsight introduces a new feature that clearly differentiates between the CS Production and Sandbox environments. This update aims to eliminate user confusion and ensure clarity when working within different instances.

A distinct "Sandbox" tag will now be displayed at the top right corner of the Sandbox instance. This visible indicator will help users quickly identify that they are in the Sandbox environment, preventing any mix-up with the CS Production environment.

The addition of the Sandbox tag ensures that users can easily distinguish between the Production and Sandbox environments.

Note: This feature will be automatically applied to all Sandbox environments.