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Product updates summary - Q3 2023

Release log of highlights from Q3 2023

Carly Hammond avatar
Written by Carly Hammond
Updated over a week ago

Summary

  • In this article, we summarise key product updates released in Q3 2023

  • These include:

    • Workflows launched (replacing Playbooks)

    • Logs Explorer launched

    • BigQuery integration supports CRM data as well as usage data

    • "File Fetcher" to import data from cloud storage providers

    • "Calendar View" of Tasks in the Actions Module

    • Automation Template: "Dynamically assign Tasks to Users"

Who is this article for?

  • All Planhat users

Series


Article contents


Introduction

Here at Planhat, we have a culture of continuous improvement, and we update Planhat frequently.

The aim of this article series is not to detail every single release, but more to give you a high-level overview of some of the key customer-facing updates - functionality changes you'll see in the UI.

Our Developers also often make improvements to elements in the "backend" - infrastructure/architecture - to enhance performance (e.g. make things load extra quickly, or be even more robust/reliable). We are not going to list these updates here.


​July 2023


New Task "Status" field

πŸ“ Details

  • This expands out the earlier Task "Outcome" field

    • Outcomes ("Done"/"Ignored") are system default and archive the Task

    • You can now also have a selection of other statuses that you can use before completion (including custom ones) such as "Waiting for customer" or "Blocked"

  • The "log a note" behaviour (when completing a Task) is also expanded, with different options possible - and you can choose your own default option to save clicks

  • For further details, check out our article here

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • Task management within Planhat is now more flexible/customisable and quicker/easier

  • This enables, for example, better "project risk" management - e.g. if a key step is blocked, then you want to alert people


New "Calendar View" of Tasks in the Actions Module

πŸ“ Details

  • In the Actions Module, in addition to the List View, you can now view your Tasks in a kanban-style Calendar View

  • This UI is super clear, customisable and easy to use

  • For further details, see our article here

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • The Actions Module is typically the part of Planhat where you, as a CSM, spend the most time

  • With this enhancement, it's easier for you to manage all your to-dos from different places (including Workflows) - there's advanced functionality available with fewer clicks


Enhancements to the Pendo integration, including support for Pendo Segments

πŸ“ Details

  • Support for Pendo Segments (filters)

  • Time zones accounted for, so more recent data is shown

  • You can now create new End Users and sync using just email address

  • Plus other improvements to the integration and the documentation

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • Planhat's Pendo integration allows you to pull all your customer usage data into Planhat. It's highly powerful and flexible

  • With these updates, functionality is further enhanced

  • Once your usage data is synced into Planhat, you can analyse it and take action on it


End User email merge tags

πŸ“ Details

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • Merge tags enable you to automatically populate emails (e.g. from Sequence Workflows) with personalised details

  • Extending support to include End User custom fields gives you more flexibility to automatically populate emails with your choice of End User data


New permission: "Email from dynamic sender"

πŸ“ Details

  • This permission enables Users to send emails from "dynamic senders" such as "Account Owner" and "Account Co-Owner"

  • The permission can be found in the "workflow permissions - features" section. You could choose to enable it for some roles and not for others

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • In some cases, you might want Planhat users to be able to send emails using their colleagues' email accounts ...

  • ... but you'll likely want to clamp down on this permission so not everyone has access


Rename and reassign list and multipicklist values

πŸ“ Details

  • If you want to change a list value (here we're talking about the option name itself, rather than changing the value assigned to a record - e.g. change the option of "Information Technology" to "IT"), instead of creating the new value and then bulk reassigning records, you can now simply rename the value in the field settings

  • If you rename a list value, the change is propagated to filters and Automations, but not to Calculated Metrics or Formula Fields

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • If you need to change list values (e.g. because something has changed name), it's now a lot easier to implement this


"File Fetcher" launched - initially for Google Cloud Storage and AWS S3

πŸ“ Details

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This allows you to pull data into Planhat from flat file imports, without needing to do them manually. Just drop new files to be imported into a bucket in your cloud storage provider, and Planhat will fetch them periodically


Enhanced text field usability

πŸ“ Details

  • Following the recent update to rich text fields, now simple text fields get an update too

  • Simple text fields are a string of characters in a container: basic one-line text that gets cut off in cells if the string is too long, requiring horizontal scrolling

  • With this update, you can now put your mouse over text fields to show a tooltip displaying the whole of the field/cell contents, if it's truncated in the UI

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This is super useful if you are storing long values in text fields


"Powertool" to merge duplicate records of a data model

πŸ“ Details

  • Previously, although there was a Powertool to merge End Users, for other models there wasn't an easy way to handle duplicates in bulk. Now, we have enhanced this Powertool and expanded it out for other data models

  • You can choose whether source ID or external ID duplicates should be processed first

  • You can also select a date or numeric field to determine the order in which data is prioritised

  • For further details, please refer to this article

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This new functionality is useful for improving the data hygiene of your tenant, if you have a lot of duplicates. It helps you quickly and easily clear up your data

  • Going forwards, this tool is expected to be needed less, as duplicates will be increasingly prevented in the first place


Changes to date fields regarding time

πŸ“ Details

  • The old "Date" type fields (which stored a time stamp that was not exposed in the UI) have been replaced with:

    • New "Date Time" fields with a date and time shown in the UI (most Date fields were converted to these)

    • New "Date" type fields that only store the date and not a time

  • As part of this, time stamps are now surfaced in some filter rules (so you can select a time zone to define what "this week" etc. corresponds to)

  • For further details, you can read our guide here

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • Date fields and filtering are now a lot clearer, and if time zones are affecting the date definition it's exposed in the UI

  • You can now use pure "Date" fields that don't include a time stamp, if required


"Team List" has moved to the Data Module

πŸ“ Details

  • The "Team List" in the Team Module has moved to the "Users" tab in the Data Module

    • This is the first step of a wider reorganisation of Users (team members) within Planhat

    • This opens up filtering options for Users, and there are some new system properties (fields) for Users too

  • "Team Insights" has now moved from the Team Module to Customer Intelligence Module > System Reports

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • Being in the Data Module means you can easily build filters and folders on the User model

  • You can also apply a Company filter (e.g. Enterprise Companies) to see the Owners related to the Companies in the filter

  • Using the portfolio filter (the initial in a circle), you can easily filter by teams of Users


New Automation Template: "Dynamically assign Tasks to Users"

πŸ“ Details

  • You may hear this referred to as "pooled work assignment"

  • This Automation Template allows you to automatically assign Tasks to different Users based on extensive criteria:

    • Based on any Task filter

    • In different ways depending on the Company filter it relates to

    • To Users based on User filters, as well as teams

    • Using a custom condition (e.g. "who has the lowest number of Tasks due in the next 7 days"), not a hardcoded set of rules

    • Via any User field on the Task, not just the Owner

  • As filters and teams are custom, this is incredibly flexible

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This Automation Template means it's really easy for you to achieve a "round robin" type of Task assignment, where Tasks are distributed to different Users (team members) based on a wide variety of customisable criteria

  • It's super useful when a team is responsible for group of Companies


August 2023


"File Fetcher" Automation Template can be used with Google Drive and OneDrive

πŸ“ Details

  • Previously we released an Automation Template to import data from Google Cloud Storage or AWS S3 - both CRM data and time-series usage data (metrics)

  • In this release, we extend support to Google Drive and OneDrive too

  • Note that in a subsequent release, the "File Fetcher" was incorporated into the new Operations Module as a templated integration - for instructions for all cloud storage providers, see here

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This Automation Template allows you to pull data into Planhat from flat file imports, without needing to do them manually. Just drop new files to be imported into a bucket in your cloud storage provider, and Planhat will fetch them periodically

  • With this release, you now have even more flexibility in terms of which cloud storage provider you can use


Default column preferences for Profile tabs

πŸ“ Details

  • This feature applies to both Company Profiles and End User Profiles

  • This is available for Planhat users with the "Admin access" permission, and lets you define what the default setup should be for:

    • The tabs across all Profiles (so for example, if you update the "End User" tab columns on Spotify, it also applies to Cisco)

    • All other users who have yet not defined their personal column preferences

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This enables you, as an admin, to design the optimal layout for your team, to ensure they see the most relevant information


Streamlining of "aggregate by" for Calculated Metrics

πŸ“ Details

  • There used to be a setting on individual Calculated Metrics to set a way to aggregate data in case of multiple values per timespan (e.g. "SUM" or "AVG"), but then you could also set this on Page widgets. With this release, you just set it on Page widgets

  • As part of this, we now support MIN and MAX as options for "aggregate by" in Page widgets

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This makes aggregation in time-series Page widgets (Trend Charts) simpler and clearer


New metric slideout

πŸ“ Details

  • This is available for all metric (time-series data) types - Calculated Metrics, System Metrics, Custom Metrics and User Activities

  • With this new UI, you now have:

    • Custom time window

    • Custom date aggregation (weeks, months, etc.)

    • Clear sentence structure

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This makes metrics even easier to view and analyse


"Null" can be set in Automations

πŸ“ Details

  • You can either use a replacement code (<<null>>) or, in a list property, select the "NULL" option from the dropdown.

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This enables you to remove (rather than just replace) a value using an Automation


BigQuery integration supports CRM data as well as usage data

πŸ“ Details

  • Initially, the BigQuery integration was designed specifically for syncing usage data (User Activities and Custom Metrics), but now you can also use it for CRM data (Companies, End Users, Licenses and so on)

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • If your CRM data is stored in BigQuery, now you can use this integration to easily sync it into Planhat (and even sync CRM data from Planhat back to BigQuery if desired)

  • This expands out the BigQuery integration to fully cover all your data needs

  • Once you've synced all your usage and CRM data into Planhat, you can view it in the context of other data types, analyse it, and take action


September 2023


Playbooks have evolved into Workflows

πŸ“ Details

  • Company and End User Playbooks have been replaced with Project and Sequence Workflows

  • Projects are available for both Company and End User models, and the UI is an inline-editable customisable table; they are optimised for Task management

  • Sequences can be used to send emails automatically; they have a streamlined interface with extra guidance on timing of step execution

  • Various other features have been added too, such as the ability for group/step conditions to be based on Task or Workflow data

  • For the announcement, see here; for the new collection of articles on Workflows, see here

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • You now have the choice of two specialised Workflow types, designed for the two main types of use case: Projects for project management, and Sequences for automatically sending emails

  • We've added extra condition functionality so now Workflows (or parts of them) can be automatically activated/deactivated based on an even wider choice of data


Changes in Calculated Metrics rebuild process - "Metric Build Period"

πŸ“ Details

  • Previously, Calculated Metrics were automatically rebuilt back to 14 days ago if there was new raw data for that time period; otherwise, you had to manually rebuild, which went back 3 years

  • Now, a customised rebuild period can be configured for your tenant (and specific Calculated Metrics if you like), which has a default value of 30 days

  • There is a new "Metrics rebuild" permission that gives the relevant role the ability to perform a manual rebuild if required, although manual rebuilds are expected to less likely now

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • Raw data changes within the new (typically longer) build period are automatically included in the Calculated Metric

  • Older (typically unnecessary) dates for the Calculated Metric are no longer rebuilt


Configurable "Data Access Period" introduced for each Planhat tenant

πŸ“ Details

  • The "Data Access Period" determines how far back you can access your data. Data outside this period will still be stored, but become inaccessible across the app, including in any metrics

  • It's set per Planhat tenant and can be changed by Planhat staff members

  • If you would like to extend yours, speak to your CSM

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • This means data is not stored longer than is necessary


New Users (team members) can be added without notifications

πŸ“ Details

  • When you add new Users (team members) to your tenant, you can now specify if you don't want them to receive notifications

  • Users can enable these notifications at a later date if desired

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • As a CS Ops person setting up your Planhat tenant, you may add some Users to your Planhat tenant so they can be set as Account Owners or Account Executives etc., but perhaps they aren't currently using Planhat so they don't want notifications (yet)


ARR and MRR both available within each tenant

πŸ“ Details

  • We have introduced "mirrored MRR and ARR" fields - this unlocks some features as described under "Benefits" below

  • You can use role permissions to determine whether you want fields of both MRR and ARR to be visible, or just your preferred one

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • There is now more flexibility in using MRR and ARR in your tenant

    • You can map integrations to both MRR and ARR fields

    • In filters and Automations etc. you can reference both ARR and MRR fields

  • With permissions, you can ensure you only show what is relevant to your team, so your view is not cluttered with unnecessary fields


Logs Explorer launched

πŸ“ Details

  • The Logs Explorer displays all changes made to all model records in Planhat

  • You can easily filter and search the logs to find what you're looking for

  • The length of time the logs go back depend on a tenant admin setting

πŸ˜ƒ Benefits

  • You can drill down into logs to trace exactly what caused an update or creation of a Company, License or any other record throughout the app - e.g. if you spot something unexpected, what caused that change?


Further reading

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