Abaility to Report on "Automated Programs" Timeline Activity Type

Another use case we have is that we want to know the date of the most recent Timeline activity of any type. One way we use this date is in JO programs, to avoid over-messaging customers in our digital touch segment. They are receiving mostly automated outreach and therefore the majority of their Timeline activities are of the ‘automated program’ type. 

I’ve set up a workaround where we have a Company field called ‘Last Timeline Activity Date’ that is populated by a rule that takes into consideration both the Activity Timeline object and the Email Logs V2. It compares the dates for the customer (max of activity date or max of email sent date) and populates the field with whichever is more recent. It works but it was annoying to configure and it doesn’t solve for other reporting needs.

It would be nice to see these in timeline reports rather than having to use the separate AO object and maybe make a Data Design with the two to report on both together for a company or person. If AP entries are in timeline, they should be accessible in reporting. Even if it’s functionality some people want and some don’t, having a toggle in Admin → Timeline that allows us to toggle on/off inclusion in reports/data set would be 🔥

@revathimenon Can we get some 👀 on this?

Hi Team,

I wanted to update you that "Automated programs" is currently a virtual entry in the Timeline, and as such, these details are not stored in the Timeline database. This technical limitation prevents us from making these entries reportable or filterable at this time.

We are planning to discuss this internally with the team to explore potential solutions. I will keep you informed of any progress or updates on this matter.

@Sowmya can you elaborate on what you mean by a “virtual entry”? Presumably they’re stored somewhere (associated timeline records for example aren’t stored in the main Activity Timeline object, but in two other MDAs - are those considered “virtual entries? as well?)

Yes @bradybluhm , similar to storing associated timeline records, data in the JO MDA that has mappings with timeline activities.

So, like Associated records, were the data for this to be exposed in an MDA, you’re saying it would be in a different MDA object than the standard Timeline Activity object? Even if doing that added a specific value to a context ID indicating the “Associated JO Activities” object, that would still add value, and at some point at least let us do something with the information.

Gainsight says “if it’s not in timeline, it didn’t happen”, so if the timeline entries aren’t reportable, then it didn’t exist either. 

This is especially true since all the new AI tools seem to almost exclusively use the Timeline object. This means Associated records don’t get counted, nor would these, if you had any query related to “when was the last email sent to X” or anything regarding these.