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josh_494f78
Contributor ⭐️⭐️
September 27, 2018
Question

Gainsight Admin Workload - at what point is it a full time job?

  • September 27, 2018
  • 12 replies
  • 426 views
Hello!

My organization is mid-rollout for Gainsight and I am starting to plan forward for its ongoing operations. I am wondering if it makes sense to hire a full-time Gainsight admin. Those I've spoken to so far have indicated that it is common to have one admin fulfill both roles, especially for smaller organizations. In our case we would initially have an experienced SFDC admin picking up Gainsight.

Does anyone have an opinion on what the workload is for ongoing operations? Or alternatively, at what number of users is it worth having the role separated out? Some variables to consider are:

- Number of Gainsight users
- Number of Salesforce users
- Multiple geographic locations
- Multiple functions
- Eventually using automation in Gainsight, but limited automation initially

I found this post regarding combining it w/ an SFDC role, but it did not address company size or user base:

https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/is-it-feasible-to-be-both-a-salesforce-admin-and-ga...

Would appreciate any thoughts or advice!

Josh

    12 replies

    sagan_sherlin
    Helper ⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Hi Josh, I'm actually a full time Gainsight Admin for my Company.  While our Gainsight application is only used within a section of the Company - I manage it for roughly 85+ Users who make up 8 distinctive departments of varying sizes, within the section I work in.  Most of the users are remote users.  I myself work on Campus, but for projects am able to work from home if necessary.

    Due to our size, we wouldn't want all of our users creating their own content - as it would get a little out of hand rather quickly.  So a dedicated resource to build, maintain, and grow the software I would say is worth it.  Our users are solely in Gainsight - but I also maintain our Salesforce information as well, which of course feeds into Gainsight.

    Sagan
    dan_ahrens
    Expert ⭐️⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Hi Josh, can you share the number of Gainsight users that would be relying on this Admin role? What's the team size and how many Gainsight applications are you planning on using?
    VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
    josh_494f78
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Thank you so much for the response, Sagan!

    Quick question, are you the sole Salesforce admin as well, or is it only you splitting your time between the tools? How many Salesforce users do you have?
    sagan_sherlin
    Helper ⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    So without getting into to much detail - for the department I admin for, I spend majority of my time developing Gainsight.  And a small amount of my time inside of Salesforce developing it - but when I am in Salesforce, I'm creating content to be pushed to Gainsight. 

    The users I work with are majority Gainsight Users.  We've been able to move a lot of our stuff from our previous CRM into Gainsight - actually a few areas have been moved into a central area within Gainsight.
    josh_494f78
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Dan,

    For sure. We expect to have over 50 users of Gainsight for the near future.

    Just to make sure I am using terminology correctly, when you say applications do you mean functionality with Gainsight itself or Gainsight apps/integrations?

    Josh
    josh_494f78
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Thanks again! This is very helpful feedback.
    dan_ahrens
    Expert ⭐️⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Thanks Josh. Yes, I'm referring to Gainsight functionality like Journey Orchestrator, Surveys, Scorecards, Relationships, etc.
    VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
    josh_494f78
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️
    September 27, 2018
    Ok, just wanted to be sure!

    Out of the gate we will be using:
    - The basic dashboards
    - Cockpit (users will leverage this and we also want to do reporting on usage)
    - Timeline (users will leverage this and we also want to do reporting on usage)
    - Scorecards
    - Email templates (a small number of them)
    - Playbooks (a small number of them)

    We would like to quickly get to the following after roll-out:
    - More customized Dashboards
    - Scheduled NPS surveys
    - Many playbooks
    - More email templates
    - Risk-triggered CTAs
    - Opportunity-triggered CTAs
    - Integrations with our ticketing system
    dan_ahrens
    Expert ⭐️⭐️⭐️
    September 28, 2018
    Based on the size of your rollout and the features you're looking to build both immediate and longer term, I'd recommend someone as a dedicated Gainsight resource. Ideally this person would be a "Customer Success Operations" role similar to how sales has their "Sales Operations" role. This person would help to not only build the configurations but work with management to define processes, refine workflows and plan strategy for the CS function. 
    VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
    July 25, 2020

    I know this is an older post, but it’s something I often wonder as well. There are some good points made here. I’m inclined to think that the extent to which you use the product and all of its potential features would be the most important factor, regardless of # of users. E.g. once you have  several integrations, rules,  JO programs, data ingestion jobs, etc. in place, it becomes more time consuming to troubleshoot and add additional customizations.

     

    That said, I think the reverse is also true. When you have a large # of users and several departments use GS, then even if you’re only using a handful of features, you will still spend a lot of time maintaining the data integrity and streamlining cross-functional processes.

     

    It’d be interesting to know the thresholds for each scenario.I think it’d be great to get a survey out there that would collect this type of information across numerous companies/industries (assuming one does not already exist).