Ability to add rich formatting in Gainsight text (CTAs, tasks, descriptions, etc.)

It's still horrific
I [i]think that the first time any paste is done into the description field, then the paragraph-level formatting from the source is adopted into that field (eg line-spacing), and from then on, you can only change it on a line by line basis. And yes, if anything other than plain text is displayed in the template field, then you are in the lap of your preferred deity as to what it gets displayed as a task under a CTA/Objective.  
Frankly I've given up, and we are entering a single hyperlink to a SharePoint-based Word document that contains the formatting that we want.
The formatting similar to that available in Timeline would be fine. I can understand it being a problem if the current field was text only, so underlying data structures would need completely revamping, but here there is obviously some rich-text formatting capability so the underlying data structure can cope to a certain extent  

We've considered using the single hyperlink too, and it just a [i]sad solution from my perspective because undermines the value of using playbooks in GS in the first place -- your tasks & job aids are no longer in the same tool. 

Agreed that formatting similar to the timeline would be sufficient. 

Hi Jeff,

This pop-up would be thrown when the character limit of the copied text is more than limit of the Description field. (Quick Question: Apart from Description, do you have any there text or long text field added as custom field in task layout?)
Sometime when you copy paste the text from MS Word, it considers some formatting as extra lines (same issue will be seen when you paste same content in notepad or sublime).

Regarding your earlier post, its again related to formatting from MS Word, but i will check why its behaving differently in Playbook task and task under CTA and get back to you.

Regards,
Hitesh

Hi Hitesh - I would understand the error if it wasn't the SAME content I previous copy/pasted and saved.

If I copy/paste the entire paragraph into the Task Descriptoin, and click save - it saves all the text.

If I enter the same text one line at a time, with a carriage return in between each, and click save, it pops up the error.

On the MS Word & formatting....so - how do we add bullets, bold/underline, hyperlinked text to a Task Description?  As you can see from other comments on this post, I'm not alone in needing a solid, consistent way to format text.

Hi Jeff,

In UI whenever we add space or extra link, in backend we store few extra characters to support formatting when rendering it or when playbook is applied. This must be the case that is reaching the limit of the character and your are seeing the issue.
If possible can you send me the MS word that you are using, so that i can see and say exactly whats happening. (send me on hsharma@gainsight.com)

Also i agree to your point that we need to improve on Formatting and we are actively working towards it, to come up with a concrete solution.

Regards,
Hitesh

Hitesh what is the character limit for the Task Description box?

@Hayley, Sorry for the delay here. Rich text formatting capabilities are supported while logging an activity: Users have access to all the capabilities of a rich text editor while logging an activity. We are actively working on CTA  also

@All, Sorry for the Inconvenience, Your inputs are precious for us and I agree supporting of rich text formatting should be there on all other areas of the product. 

I am escalating this to our respective Product Managers, We will get back to you soon.

Sai, any updates here?  This is very very painful.  Because we are a Microsoft shop, I am having to copy/paste from Microsoft into my personal Google Drive account.  Reformat it in Google, then copy paste it to Gainsight.    If I have to make any playbook changes, I have to change it in Google Drive, then copy/paste it to Gainsight AND back to the source Microsoft doc.

This has taken me countless hours.  

We are using Timeline to do that formatting, as that seems to strip out all of the unwanted tags/formatting that cause the biggest problems, and from there into the Description.
There are a few things that need an extra tweak, but it has changed the task description from utterly unusable, to just about acceptable.
It would be MUCH better to have the full solution, though!!!