It’s been said many times before that Chrome is the best browser to use now days for its security, ease of use, and speed. But the real reason I love Gainsight on Chrome is because of the extensions!
Chrome extensions are small apps that are built to sit on top of Chrome and extend its functionality. They typically serve a small single purpose like ad blocking, password protection, or to easily schedule a Zoom meeting within Google Calendar. They are distributed through the Chrome Web Store and all go through a full review process by Google.
Why I love extensions is because you can customize Chrome to better suit your needs in administering Gainsight. And best of all, you never have to leave Chrome and open another app. Here’s my favorite Chrome extensions that I hope will make your life as a Gainsight admin easier as well.
Salesforce Colored Favicons
If you work in Gainsight on SFDC and/or work in multiple Salesforce environments because you also administer Salesforce, this is the most helpful simple tool you’ll ever find. This extension allows you to easily distinguish between which environments you are logged in.
When I build in a sandbox and deploy to production, I often am logged into the sandbox in one browser tab and production in another. This allows me to easily test when configurations have been deployed. But it can quickly get confusing which environment is in which tab because the only way to distinguish is via the URLs:
- Production environments: https://login.salesforce.com
- Sandbox environments: https://test.salesforce.com
And let’s face it, if you have multiple tabs open like I normally do, it sucks clicking on each tab to find which is which.
This app allows you to customize the colour of the favicon on each tab. It’s incredibly easy to setup and can allow you to colour code all your production tabs as orange and all your sandbox tabs as green, for example. And it works with both Classic and Lightning.
My S3 Browser
If you use an S3 bucket to load data to Gainsight, this is the easiest to use file manager out there. There are other apps that can be used like Cyberduck which Gainsight recommends in their support article: Upload CSV/TSV Files into S3 Bucket.
Cyberduck is a great tool but as I mentioned above, I prefer to use the My S3 Browser extension. They effectively accomplish the same goals but one is in a separate app and the other is right in Chrome and you don’t need to go into another app. I also find My S3 Browser easier to use and it requires fewer clicks to get where you need all helping your productivity.
To setup My S3 Browser, you only need to install the extension and connect to your S3 Bucket. You’ll need your bucket name, access key, and Security Token to setup your access.
Todoist for Chrome
Todoist is a great little app to track your tasks and items on your plate. This app is no replacement for a project plan or leveraging tools like Smartsheets or Asana to keep track of all activities your CS Ops team is working on. However, what I love most about this app is its ability to track quick to do items when working away.
When you work in Gainsight (or Salesforce) and you move through the admin screens, you sometimes come up with small changes you want to make later. Like update the user’s permissions or go back to a particular screen to make some changes later. This extension allows you to easily track that and best of all, you can add website URLs to the tasks so it’s easy to go back to the page later. I use this a lot for tasks that are those “don’t forget to go back here” type tasks.
Boomerang for Gmail
If you work with people across time zones, or if you like to pull late hours but don’t want to email your co-worker at 1am, this is the app for you. With this extension, you can craft your messages in Gmail and then schedule when to send it. You can see if your recipient opened your message and set a reminder to follow-up.
I find this app really helpful when working with end users. I find “how to” emails and config related emails to be more likely read and responded to if you send them during the end-users work day. And your users will appreciate you just emailing them during their office hours. It’s a small touch that will help to keep your emails and your inbox organized.
Screencastify - Screen Video Recorder
Screencastify is, I find, the easiest app to take a quick video of your screen and send it to a user. So often, as an admin, you will receive how to questions and the best way to respond is with a quick video.
There are other apps that do this as well (like QuickTime on Apple or Camtasia), but I love how easy this tool is to use and you don’t need to have another app opened to take a quick video. Plus, you can also easily record you speaking during the video if you need to provide any additional types. Next time you need to tell a user how to fill out a Customer Success Plan, use this app to record all the steps.
Toggl Button
If you ever need to track your time spent on a particular task, this is a great time tracker. You can manually add time or use the timer to start counting your time spent. It can integrate with most project tools like Asana, Trello, and even Todoist which I listed above. For a time tracker, you can’t get any easier than this app.
Gainsight Assist
I would be remiss if I did not mention Gainsight’s very own extension in this article. Hopefully, you’re all fully aware of its functionality and you’ve seen all the content before. But for a quick synopsis, this new extension allows you to easily use Gainsight’s email templates and sync your emails to the Gainsight timeline all within Gmail. So, if you’re using Gmail at work, this is definitely one extension you won’t want to miss.
For more information, Gainsight has put some excellent content together on this app which can be seen in their video below and their support article here: Gainsight Assist Chrome Plug-in User Guide and the Chrome Plugin video on Youtube.
I hope you find these extensions as useful as I do. And if you ever run into a new extension that you find helpful, please share. I’m always looking for new tools to increase admin productivity.
Stay thirsty, my friends!