We wanted to make you aware that the Sponsor Tracking infrastructure in Gainsight is currently significantly degraded. In researching this issue with our service provider over the last week, we’ve found that the service has been degrading over the last few months and is now is no longer working for many of our customers.
IMPACT
Sponsor changes are not being passed from our service provider into Gainsight resulting in a lack of CTAs or updates.
NEXT STEPS
We are working with our service provider to research options for bringing the Sponsor Tracking infrastructure back to full functionality.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
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UPDATE July 28, 2017
You may begin to see some Sponsor Tracking notifications, as we continue to work with our vendor to fully restore the service.
UPDATE September 7, 2017
Sponsor Tracking service has been fully restored. You should notice that the service is now working better than ever due to some product enhancements that were part of the Summer release on September 5th.
We have implemented changes that will help filter out false positives and trivial profile changes (e.g. renaming Gainsight to Gainsight Inc.), and push only valid profile changes to you.
Please be patient with us as we work through our backlog of tracking and validation requests over the next few weeks. During this period, there may be some minor delays in pushing profile updates.
Known Issue | Sponsor Tracking - RESOLVED
+2
@emily Who is your service provider?
+2Sorry, we're not able to disclose the service provider's name publicly.
Would this be the reason for why the linking process hasn't been working for some contacts in the last few weeks? I had a few sponsors who I would look up manually, provide the URL to gainsight, and then request to link, and the process would never complete. I can provide more details/examples if it's helpful.
+2Yes, Ben, this would be the reason for the linking process not working for the last few weeks.
Hi Emily, would this also include the opposite scenario where we have CTAs firing but when looking on LinkedIn, there is no change in title/role for the contact we're tracking?
+2Tammy, yes that is related. In order to avoid this from happening, I'd suggest turning off rules that are firing CTAs for sponsor changes for now.
Ok, thanks Emily!
+2You may begin to see some Sponsor Tracking notifications, as we continue to work with our vendor to fully restore the service.
Hi Emily - any update on when this will be fully resolved? What is your esitmation to the % cases where this is now OK?
Hi,
Happy to let you all know that the Sponsor Tracking service has been restored fully (to the previous service levels). We already started pushing the profile updates since the last few weeks and have been monitoring the service and are satisfied with the progress made.
Importantly, the quality of changes pushed will be significantly better now because of the manual layer we have implemented with Summer release. This layer helps filter out false positives, trivial profile changes (e.g. [i]Gainsight has been renamed as [i]Gainsight Inc.) and push only valid profile changes. Please note this is not the same as tracking all the profiles manually. The manual layer is used only to verify the profile changes.
As the feature was down for a while, we are currently working through the backlog of tracking and validation and it might take few weeks for us to clear the backlog. During this period, there might be some delay in receiving the profile updates.
Thanks for your patience regarding this issue. Please let us know if you have any specific questions.
Happy to let you all know that the Sponsor Tracking service has been restored fully (to the previous service levels). We already started pushing the profile updates since the last few weeks and have been monitoring the service and are satisfied with the progress made.
Importantly, the quality of changes pushed will be significantly better now because of the manual layer we have implemented with Summer release. This layer helps filter out false positives, trivial profile changes (e.g. [i]Gainsight has been renamed as [i]Gainsight Inc.) and push only valid profile changes. Please note this is not the same as tracking all the profiles manually. The manual layer is used only to verify the profile changes.
As the feature was down for a while, we are currently working through the backlog of tracking and validation and it might take few weeks for us to clear the backlog. During this period, there might be some delay in receiving the profile updates.
Thanks for your patience regarding this issue. Please let us know if you have any specific questions.
+9VERY appreciative of the technical and manual changes that you were able to make with the summer release! Our CSMs and Execs became disillusioned with Sponsor Tracking and had me turn off our Sponsor CTAs and reporting entirely, but this gives me the ammo to get it back up and running.
If anyone here has examples of a "crawl-walk-run" approach that worked for them to get Sponsor Tracking adopted in their team, I'd love to hear about it. Before, I struggled to get CSMs to actually set up the contacts as Sponsors, since the cost/benefit to them just wasn't strong enough, since the benefit isn't immediate or guaranteed.
If anyone here has examples of a "crawl-walk-run" approach that worked for them to get Sponsor Tracking adopted in their team, I'd love to hear about it. Before, I struggled to get CSMs to actually set up the contacts as Sponsors, since the cost/benefit to them just wasn't strong enough, since the benefit isn't immediate or guaranteed.
AI Transformation @ Gainsight
Emily, Can Gainsight customers still ask Gainsight Customer Support for a paid service engagement quote for bulk sponsor tracking assistance? If so, what information should be submitted to get a quote? Thank you!
Hi Seth, Here's a suggestion for consideration:
1) If possible have an intern take a first pass at tracking sponsors in Gainsight for the CSM team (from a contact report in SFDC for example) OR potentially pay to have Gainsight do the bulk load (see my clarifying question to Emily below)
2) Turn on the Sponsor Tracking rule but for ~the first week have the CTAs fire to you for spot checking.
3) Assuming good results, report your findings on the accuracy of Sponsor Tracking to the CSMs
4) With some renewed confidence in the capability, update the Sponsor Tracking rule to go to the CSMs. Also discuss and get agreement to update your new customer Playbook to ask the CSMs to add new contacts to Sponsor Tracking as they come on board so it's minimal ongoing effort. This is a good time to set proper expectations - check out the known limitations listed here https://support.gainsight.com/Product_Documentation/Customers_and_Relationships/Admin_Configuration/...
Bonus - If you have an opportunity to make it fun, ask the CSMs to submit any Sponsor Tracking success stories in the next 30 days and everyone who has one will be put in a drawing for a small prize. :-)
Hope that helps!
Elaine
1) If possible have an intern take a first pass at tracking sponsors in Gainsight for the CSM team (from a contact report in SFDC for example) OR potentially pay to have Gainsight do the bulk load (see my clarifying question to Emily below)
2) Turn on the Sponsor Tracking rule but for ~the first week have the CTAs fire to you for spot checking.
3) Assuming good results, report your findings on the accuracy of Sponsor Tracking to the CSMs
4) With some renewed confidence in the capability, update the Sponsor Tracking rule to go to the CSMs. Also discuss and get agreement to update your new customer Playbook to ask the CSMs to add new contacts to Sponsor Tracking as they come on board so it's minimal ongoing effort. This is a good time to set proper expectations - check out the known limitations listed here https://support.gainsight.com/Product_Documentation/Customers_and_Relationships/Admin_Configuration/...
Bonus - If you have an opportunity to make it fun, ask the CSMs to submit any Sponsor Tracking success stories in the next 30 days and everyone who has one will be put in a drawing for a small prize. :-)
Hope that helps!
Elaine
+9Thanks so much, Elaine!
Hi Emily - I just submitted a support ticket as well but our sponsor tracking is still really off. Are there still known issues?
Hi Kim,
Since the feature was down for a while. We have a backlog of profile updates to be verified before pushing to the customers. This might cause the updates to come little late. Are you seeing any specific issue with sponsor tracking?
Thanks,
Since the feature was down for a while. We have a backlog of profile updates to be verified before pushing to the customers. This might cause the updates to come little late. Are you seeing any specific issue with sponsor tracking?
Thanks,
Hi Rajesh - Yes, a lot of ours are not correct. Is there something we should do to refresh the connections? Or should I submit a list of a few to support?
Hi Kim,
No specific action required from your end. We are already in the process correcting the profiles for all customers.
No specific action required from your end. We are already in the process correcting the profiles for all customers.
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