Timeline vs CTA: What will you prefer to register activities?

Thanks for posting, Bruno!  

The customers that I have talked to are not planning to change their current processes where they have: (a) consistent users of CTAs with notes logged on the CTA - especially if they're attaching the file to the CTA which means you have everything in one place like you mentioned or (b) high usage of a Chatter-like platform for note-taking.   

What they have talked about is getting feedback from CSM teams who are using an external tool like Evernote to see what it would take to move note-taking into Gainsight (and as appropriate syncing to SF activities).  They also have some interest in "post an update" when there's information that doesn't fit anywhere else and logging a CTA is 'too heavy'.  I think it would be great to "post to a profile" so you could filter on all your "profile info" easily and quickly. 

Once we have reporting available on Timeline & more integration options, I'm excited to see what Timeline can offer.  In the interim - like you, Bruno - I'd love to hear what others are thinking! 

We will be using Timeline for activities that are external to CTAs.  CTAs should be for the larger activities, significant Events, Risks, Opportunties, Objectives - notes can be captured in the CTA as they pertain to those.  Timeline activities would be for the in-between actions that are not tied to something more significant.

Totally valid concerns around having to (1) leave CTAs to log an activity on the Timeline, and (2) having no categorization or reason allocation as to why the call was made (QBR). This shouldn't be an issue once we bring Timeline functionality to CTAs (and Cockpit) -- everything goes to the same place, but with additional context of you working through a particular situation (CTAs). For now, though, there are limitations that might make a complete change of process difficult, as pointed out by Elaine and Jeff.

For more discussion and ideas. 🙂

Thanks for this post. I am trying to figure this out too. We use CTAs to log customer trainings. With timeline, it would be good to note when the training occurred - but I feel like it's double entry for our CSMs.

Hey Jeff - how is your org using Milestones. We are exploring that, and thought to use it for larger activities/events - but I see you are ding that for CTAs.

How soon will you be able to link the timeline entries to CTA's?

I also noticed that from timeline I only see ability to log time on 'Log a Call' and 'Log a Meeting'...the other options time entry is not available.

It's one of our top priorities, right after connecting Timeline to Relationships. Likely to happen only after the Winter (Feb) release, though.

We left it out by default for Updates and Emails. You can always add it back [i]and add more custom fields to the layout as needed. There is also some interesting discussion happening on layout and template configuration here. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Manu, can you elaborate on what "bring Timeline functionality to CTAs (and Cockpit)" means?  I am excited about the timeline, but share the concerns expressed here by other clients about duplication of effort.  Further, my users are really interested in seeing the full picture of account activity all in on place-- pulling CTAs (at the point of CTA close perhaps?) into the Timeline alongside activities would be key to making Timeline useful for my org.  Not as important, but it would be cool to see milestones in the timeline as well.

Hey Manu, any update on this ?