Recent Gainsight Assist changes introduce risks/challenges

Agree with this. I’m honestly scared to check our data since this was rolled out. We have several activities with required fields that I suspect are not getting filled in now as @darkknight points out. 
 

Agree with this. I’m honestly scared to check our data since this was rolled out. We have several activities with required fields that I suspect are not getting filled in now as @darkknight points out. 

My head is spinning, can’t believe that mandatory fields weren’t included in the QA process. This is madness

I am part of product team and we are working on the feedback we are getting.

Bringing more fields in plugins is part of the roadmap and we will work on it in upcoming quarters but no ETA for now. 

We have a VCAM scheduled to understand end user’s use cases and hear feedback, The Link is here

We are working on reducing clicks while logging a mail-in compose screen and have a prototype to show. Your Inputs will help us.

Hi @Ritika Jindal 
I’m not a CSM but I can tell you from the admin side that this is a headache. On the one hand we have to go activity type one by one to identify the mandatory fields. And then, fish the invalid entries from a report… No way to streamline this process, it’s an effort almost 100% manual.

On the other hand, all the issues that this can cause downstream:
For example, a timeline entry that has a mandatory field where the user chooses a value from a picklist. And a dependent rule which picks up those records with a case like “if [this mandatory field] equals X, do this, else, this other thing”. Now, those entries qualify under “do this other thing”. Unintentionally we can have entries flowing to that else scenario that can vary from triggering a CTA to a CSM, sending an email to a customer, writing in an object, updating fields…

I was supper happy to see the capability to choose the Company, it’s something that we have been waiting for a long time (

) but the added “choosing the activity type” with all the issues flagged by Jeff have the potential to cause a disaster. 
Honesty, I’m afraid to think about all the potential implications and I personally think that until those issues are addressed, the update should be limited just to choosing the Company and keep logging the entries as emails.
Thanks,

I concur with @romihache and will be more direct:

@Ritika Jindal this recent change allowing users to select the Activity Type needs to be reverted until we have the ability to dynamically expose the required fields depending on the Activity Type selected (at a minimum).  

As I note above, the recent change causes more problems than it solves. We cannot live with this gap for “quarters” to have the additional functionality. 

I understand this is a commonly requested feature by both admins and CSMs, but frankly speaking Gainsight did not take this feature out to its logical conclusion and appears to have been oblivious to the administrative and data implications that this would create. It should not have been released without ensuring required fields would also be surfaced.

And I’m not really sure why a VCAM is needed. This should be a very self-evident and logical issue to address. If you have mandatory fields, users should be able to complete them through any avenue by which Timeline entries can be created.

cc: @jake_ellis 

@Ritika Jindal See above thread for input on what folks need :). We shouldn’t enable ways for users to bypass required fields - respectfully, this should not have made it out of the design phase as is. 

I understand the concept of an “MVP” launch, but there needs to be some thought into what the end state would look like, and what an acceptable minimum would be to be viable.

I’m really surprised that Gainsight gave no apparent thought to required fields on different activity types. They are REQUIRED for a reason. The fact that there is no ETA and is quarters out is the biggest oversight - it truly shows that required fields were not even in the thought process of this feature development and additional fields were seen as a nice to have down the road. You might even get some feedback back from CSMs saying “we love this - so streamlined!” (translation: I don’t have to fill in any of those required fields anymore!). Meanwhile us admins are explaining to all of the leadership that because of this change that Gainsight has decided to make their reports are going to be skewed and inaccurate because we can no longer enforce getting the data we need.

100% - Not only that, but there’s a good chance that as a result of this either:

1. CSMs will be asked to go back and edit their entries (if someone leaves before correcting them then we’ll just never know what the right info was!) which completely negates the “yay so streamlined” confirmation bias feedback from CSMs anyways.
2. The tool will get blamed, and will be another reason someone might be asking “why are we using this?”

Or both.

10000000000 x this!

This is exactly why going straight to CSMs for input is not the brilliant strategy GS thinks it is. They have zero insights into systematic dependencies.

Admins will always - ALWAYS - have the CSM/end user perspective in mind when making requests and advocating for changes. They are our stakeholders.  We know better than Gainsight what they need and how they need it.

Hi @Ritika Jindal - I’m confused how this is not being fixed ASAP? Why are we allowing a way for Timeline entries to be created where the user cannot fill out the required fields? Having the user create the entry vie Gainsight Assist and then go into Gainsight to correct the TL entry is not an acceptable interim solution.