Automated Playbooks
Playbook automation help you automate internal customer management, fire alerts for in-need accounts, and engage customers.
Playbook Automation Overview
Playbook automation help you automate common Customer Success needs by performing a series of actions (e.g. fire a risk indicator, send an email, create a task) on Vitally Objects that meet certain requirements.
Each action in a Playbook automation is applied at a defined schedule based on when the Playbook was first activated on the organization/account/user.
Creating Playbook Automation
Let's look into creating playbook automation! Below is a video to walk you through some examples. As you keep scrolling down on this documentation, we'll take a deep dive to help you make the best decisions in creating your playbook automation. We chat through frequency, triggers, actions, rules, and more!
🚨 If you don’t want your playbook automation to include churned enrollees, simply add a filter for “Churn date is not set” for Orgs and Accounts or "Deactivated is not set" for Users if your lifecycle tracking rules have been configured.
Playbook Automation Frequency
Frequency allows you to choose the limit of how many times the Object can enroll into the playbook over a specific timeframe when it matches and un-matches the rules. This is not to be confused to a recurring playbook automation, you can learn about recurring playbooks here.
Once an object matches, Playbook automation run on an hourly basis to see what object matches the rules set. This can not be modified.
There are three options:
Playbook Automation Triggers
Before you start creating your Playbook automation, you want to make sure you're choosing the correct triggers. Your triggers are what control what goes in and out of your Playbooks so it is very important that you start with the correct list of customers.
Playbooks can be triggered off any traits, Success Metrics, Elements, other Playbooks, Indicators, etc. There are many options for you to choose from to narrow down the audience list you want to specifically target (Below, there is a User vs Account Playbook Example).
Churned Accounts, Organizations, and Users will be enrolled into Playbooks, and all actions will apply. If you don’t want your Playbook automation to include churned enrollees, simply add a filter for “Churn date is not set” for Orgs and Accounts or "Deactivated is not set" for Users if your lifecycle tracking rules have been configured.
Depending on the trigger rules you want to choose from and what you're trying to accomplish will depend on your selection. Below, User vs Account Playbook Example, we go over Users vs Accounts as an example.
Playbooks Automation Actions
Actions allow you to configure something that should happen once Organizations, Accounts, or Users match your rules on a set schedule.
For example, on the 1st day a Playbook automation is applied to an account, you can send an email to the Account's owner. On the 3rd day, you can create a Task for the Account's CSM. Then, on the 10th day, you can send another email.
Playbook Automation: Available Actions
Playbook Automation Rules
Rules allow you to add delays or split logic to create branches.
Split: Another word for this is branches! With branching, teams can create workflows with dedicated paths for addressing a range of different outcomes. The branching logic also means teams can reduce the number of their overall Playbooks. For example, instead of using multiple Playbooks to assign new customers to specific plan types, teams can utilize branching to filter new customers into their correct plan from a single Playbook.
Wait: You can now choose between setting a rule for a waiting period as a defined number of days or until the account matches a specific set of rules. Users can set this rule for various situations, including automating emails, tracking account set up, or any other action your team may be automating for. When delaying automations until a specific condition is met, users can also define a maximum number of days to delay the next action. If a customer is stuck or doesn’t complete the expected action, your team can set a new path to best address the customer.
Playbooks: Branched Logic
With our "split" rule, you can create branching conditions within a playbook. Follow these steps to add a branch:
An "Otherwise" branch will always be created to capture any objects that do not match the logic of the other branches.
Branches can be reordered or deleted using the up and down arrows or the trashcan icon in the popout next to each branch name.
Split/Branch logic use cases:
Playbooks: Wait/Delays
There are 2 options to delay an action in a playbook
Playbook Automation Details
Define general details about your Playbook.
Creating a Playbook Category
Creating a category is done when you're in a Playbook so the workflow is slightly different than some of the other categories.
Managing your Playbook Automation
View Matching Audience
Viewing Active Playbook Automation in a Table View
View Playbook Automation History
How to Pause a Playbook Automation
Manually removing an object from a Playbook is not possible but you can pause a Playbook automation. This action has 2 impacts:
All previously-applied actions are 'undone' (e.g. active Indicators are ended, pending messages are not sent, etc)
No further actions will be applied to the Account for that Playbook unless the Account has the entire Playbook reapplied to them.
How to Clone or Delete a Playbook Automation
When you delete a Playbook, here's what will happen:
All previously-applied actions are 'undone' (e.g. active Indicators are ended, pending messages are not sent, etc)
If the Playbook added an Account to a Segment, the Account will be removed from the Segment.
Tasks and custom traits will either be deleted/cleared or left alone, depending on the option that you select in the action configuration.
Playbook Use Cases, Tips, & Tricks
Playbook automations can be used in so many different ways to achieve different goals. You can trigger drip campaigns, assign key roles based on specific data, update traits, and much more. The many options can be overwhelming but don't fret, we've got you covered on strategic ways to achieve your goals. Below we go over 2 of the most commonly asked questions on Playbooks:
How to manually enroll a customer in a Playbook (start video at 1:44)
How to set up a recurring Playbook (start video at 7:30 min)
Creating a recurring playbook
If you're creating a recurring playbook off activity (notes, tasks, and projects) then you can follow the steps below. We're using Projects as the example but these are the same steps for Tasks or Notes:
Create Categories:
Create a category for example, "Collaborative."
Create Templates:
Assign the appropriate category, such as "Collaborative," to relevant project templates like QBR (Quarterly Business Review).
Defining Playbook Trigger for Playbooks: You can trigger off Next Due Task or Last Completed Task, depending on what you want select the appropriate option!
Establish the logic for playbook triggers based on key activities. For example:
Trigger off the last completed project within the "Collaborative" category.
Set the timeframe for triggering the playbook (e.g 90 days)
Add Playbook Actions:
Add an action to create a new project (and any other actions you want)
Once a project is completed, individuals will be removed from the current playbook. Upon completion of the new project, individuals will be added back into the playbook for the next cycle.
By following these steps, you can effectively configure project categories, trigger playbooks based on key activities, and automate project creation within your system. This enables seamless management and execution of recurring tasks or projects, such as Quarterly Business Reviews.
If you want to create a recurring playbook that is not targeting Notes, Tasks, or Projects there is another method, which would be based off an actual date. This method involves creating custom traits and setting specific date criteria for triggering actions:
Creating Custom Traits:
Create a DATETIME custom trait, such as "Last QBR Date."
Please note a datetime trait is highly, highly recommended since date traits can fluctuate with UTC. So if it's a daily playbook, a date trait will not work, but if it's a 30, 60, or 90 day playbook, it will probably work ok.
Defining Playbook Trigger for Playbooks:
Establish the trigger condition based on the custom trait. For example:
Define the trigger condition as "Last QBR Date greater than 90 days ago."
Consider including additional filters as needed.
Handling Nulls:
Include a condition to handle null values, ensuring individuals are included if the event has not occurred previously.
Automating Actions:
Determine the actions to automate within the playbook, such as creating a new QBR project or Vitally Doc
Add a Wait action:
Incorporate a wait step to hold the process until the completion of the QBR event.
Utilize available data to detect the completion of the QBR, such as activity objects or specific indicators.
Update a Trait Action:
Add an action to update the custom trait with the current date to mark the event's occurrence.
This update ensures individuals are removed from the playbook until the next cycle.
As time progresses, individuals will cycle in and out of the playbook based on the date criteria. The playbook will automatically adjust based on the specified time frame, in this case, ninety days.
FAQ
Q: I applied an action retroactively, but it didn't work? A: When a Playbook gets retroactively applied, it applies all new actions that have not yet been applied to matching objects. It doesn’t rerun any actions that have already been applied to a matching object.
Q: Do churned customers run through playbooks? A: As of 12/8/23, all actions will be applied for any Playbook created on or AFTER. You'll want to add a filter such as 'churn date is not set' so those actions don't trigger on churned Organizations or Accounts.
This does NOT include users. We will NOT email churned Users from the start or reply to conversation action in a Playbook.
Any Playbooks created before 12/8/23: Yes, but not all actions are applied to churned Objects. Below is a list of actions that a Playbook will ignore and actions that will work via a Playbook:
Q: How do I stop churned from being enrolled into Playbook automations? A: Churned will be enrolled into playbooks and all actions will apply. If you don’t want your playbooks to include churned enrollees, simply add a filter for “Churn date is not set” for Orgs and Accounts or "Deactivated is not set" for Users if your lifecycle tracking rules have been configured.
Q: I'm using the action filters to reply to a conversation earlier in the playbook but can not find the conversation I want to reply to, what's going on? A: This is likely tied to the "strategy" in your conversation action. You want to be sure to have it set to "start a group conversation with users at the same account" and NOT "start one conversation per user". Once you switch that over to the appropriate strategy, you will now see the conversation under the action filters.
Relevant Links
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