Ability to update multiple timelines at once?

Hi Natalie. We're excited to hear about your use of Timeline. Can you give an example of the type of update that you would be making to 40 clients simultaneously? There might be another way to accomplish this and knowing the use case in more detail would be helpful. 

Thanks,
Dan

I am an implementation manager (probably better known as an account manager at most companies) for an educational software company. Sometimes, we have new features that require us to go into the sites and update them. I want to record that it was done in GS but not by going into multiple accounts and doing it one at a time.

Dan, I could provide you another use case that pertains to us as which might help as well. CSMs manage several accounts and in some instances we perform meetings in which several customers are invited to discuss a technical or architectural topic in which our company provides certain guidelines and then customers provide feedback on applicability. It would be useful for our CSMs to be able to make the update in the timeline of all their accounts which attended avoiding them to have to jump into 20 timelines to make the same update. Thanks Nathalie for bringing this up!

Good discussion!

Natalie - for your use case, are you just essentially noting that the update was complete or do you need to capture any specific notes or details related to the update? It sounds like what you're looking to do might be better accomplished via a Milestone - see this link for more info.

Timeline is intended for instances where there was a high value, human to human interaction or a key account update recorded on the account. It's basically a highly functional note taking system. If you're looking to track completion of an update or task just to note that it was done, then Milestones might be a simpler solution. 

As an added benefit - Milestones can be created via rules automation - so you could have a list of customers that had the update applied and then just run the rule that will create all the Milestone entries for you!

Marcelo - that's another good use case. It sounds a lot like a Customer Advisory Board type of session, right? If I understand your use case correctly, there would be some general notes that would be the same for all attendees and you'd want to track for each company represented the notes as well as the attendees from that company that attended. Is this correct?

Dan you are correct on my use case. I was thinking of simplifying it for you so that we do not have to consider specific notes per account, but if we could do that as well it would be awesome. In simplified terms, if we could have an interface where we could load a spreadsheet with specific columns required that will trigger the creation of timelines events that would take care of it. I don't think we can currently do this with the S3 connector.

Marcelo's point is good as well. I often have webinars or meetings with multiple clients and the update would be the same. I guess the issue is that sometimes we do CTA's, sometimes it's a Timeline entry and now Milestones. That just gets even more confusing for anyone else who wants to look at my accounts. They would have to check 3 different places to see if something was noted? There needs to be continuity.

I looked through the docs you sent. Ideally, I would love to have a simple way to choose which accounts receive the update (whether it's on the Timeline, a Milestone, etc. doesn't matter). Basically, enter the update (date, description) and then maybe checkboxes that allow it to attach to specific accounts. 

That's correct. Currently Timeline entries can only be created manually. 

We are evaluating use cases around creation of Timeline events via the rules engine though for future releases.

So for noting that a customer received an upgrade and just capturing the date, title of update and some text description - this is really ideal for Milestones. 

One thing I'll note is that our product and dev teams are evaluating providing the option to show Milestones in the Timeline interface, which would allow you to record events such as this use in Milestones (and created en masse via rules) while still giving view and reporting flexibility via Timeline. 

Hi Dan,

We would like the ability to relate a single timeline entry to multiple customers as well. Our use case is that due to billing rules we have multiple accounts with distinct products, but they all share a single admin. We'd like to update the timeline on all of those accounts after an annual review, so that each of them reflects the most recent discussion and plan. Since they have distinct products, one of these accounts could have a different overall score and some may undergo a review process. Those timeline entries being reflected on each account would be critical for the reviewer, who may be unaware that all events on the parent account affect all children.

Thanks!