About Objectives

Objectives help you to manage the main goals of a success plan, so that you can establish the individual requirements necessary to achieve the success plan. After creating a success plan and establishing the individual aims outlined by your customer's needs, you can create objectives to provide a framework for the customer to achieve their goals. In addition, an objective can have multiple playbooks to plan, detail, and manage the objective.

Viewing Objectives

You can view objectives in:

You can view the following records associated with an objective in the Related tab of the objective's record page:

  • Playbooks
  • Playbook Tasks
  • Objective KPIs

Creating Objectives

You can create either blank objectives or objectives from templates. An objective created from a template inherits the information stored in the template, including its child record information. You can also select a record type for your new record if your administrator has set up custom record types.

You can create objectives using:

  • The Create Objective action in the Actions panel, which is available on the Customer Success Management Workspace. This action might also be available from a record page if your administrator has added the Actions panel to the page. This enables you to create either blank objectives or objectives from a template, as well as add objective KPIs to your new objective.
  • The Add Objective button in Success Tracker. This enables you to create either blank objectives or objectives from a template, as well as add objective KPIs to your new objective.
  • The New list view button in the Objectives tab. This enables you to create blank objectives only.

For more information, see Creating Objectives.

Note:

To create objectives from templates, you must have the correct permissions assigned. For more information, contact your administrator.

Blank Objectives

When creating an objective from a success plan record page, the Success Plan field is automatically populated with the success plan you are currently viewing.

Objectives Created from Templates

You can save an objective as a template by selecting the Template checkbox while creating your new objective. Objectives created from templates inherit their information and the following child records:

  • Playbooks
  • Playbook tasks
Note:

You can select a playbook task record without selecting its parent playbook record.

When creating a new objective record from a template that contains child records, the Select Records grid displays so that you can:

  • View the child records inherited from the template, such as playbooks and playbook tasks.
  • Deselect any child records that you do not want to include in your new record. By default, all of the template's child records are selected. If the template contains no child records, a message notifies you of this, the Select Records grid does not display, and you can finish creating your new record.

  • Edit child records. You can edit the Name, Start Date, and End Date fields. The Resources field is read-only.

Note:

Changing the start date of an objective affects the start and end dates of its child records. In this case, any changes you made to the start and end dates of child records will be lost and the start and end dates will be set according to the objective's new start date.

When creating objectives from templates:

  • When selecting a template, only objectives with the Template checkbox selected are displayed. The templates are displayed in separate cards by default.

  • When creating an objective from a success plan record page, the Success Plan field is automatically populated with the success plan you are currently viewing.

  • Objective records created from templates do not inherit the information stored in the Resources field of the templates' child records.

Custom Record Types

If your org uses custom record types:

  • You can select a record type for your new record if your administrator has set up custom record types.

  • The displayed fields might vary depending on whether your org uses custom record types. For more information, contact your administrator.

  • When creating a record of a specific type, the Record Type field is automatically populated and is read-only. To display this field, the administrator must add it to the necessary page layouts.

  • If there are no record types available in your org for the Objective, Playbook, and Success Plan objects, the fields in their related creation and edit windows use the related field sets.

For more information, see Setting up Customer Success Cloud.

Editing Objectives

You can edit an objective to update its details:

  • In the Objectives tab
  • From Success Tracker

For more information, see Editing Objectives.

Notes:

  • Editing an objective's success plan also updates the success plan of the objective's playbooks and playbook tasks.

  • The displayed fields might vary depending on whether your org uses custom record types. For more information, contact your administrator.

  • If there are no record types available in your org for the Objective, Playbook, and Success Plan objects, the fields in their related creation and edit windows use the related field sets.

Deleting Objectives

You can delete objectives:

  • In the Objectives tab
  • In the Objectives related list in the Related tab of the parent success plan of the objective that you want to delete
  • In Activity Tracker

To delete an objective, you must first delete its objective KPIs. For more information, see Deleting Objective KPIs.

Objective KPIs

An objective can have multiple objective KPIs (key performance indicators), which enable you to track and quantify the performance and success of the objective. Customer success managers can use this feature to facilitate reporting to internal and external stakeholders, saving time, operational cost, and improving customer satisfaction.

Each objective KPI can have a different category, description, target date, and unit, as well as different baseline, current, and target values. By specifying these values and selecting a unit of measurement, such as a currency, time period, or numerical unit, you can view how your objective KPI is progressing toward the target. The following example shows how you can use an objective KPI and its baseline, current, and target values to track and quantify an objective's performance and success.

Example:

One of your customer's targets is to generate an additional $250,000 in revenue in this financial year. To track this target and quantify its performance and success, you can create a related objective KPI. In addition to setting a target date, selecting a category, and selecting USD as the unit of measurement for the objective KPI, you can also specify the following information:

  • A baseline value of $1,000,000, which was the revenue generated in the preceding year
  • A current value of $1,100,000, which is the up-to-date value of the customer's revenue
  • A target value of $1,250,000, which is the revenue value that the customer aims for

By default, Customer Success Cloud provides the following units of measurement for the baseline, current, and target values:

  • Currency: EUR, GBP, JPY, USD
  • Time: Hours, Days, Weeks, Months
  • Numerical: Percent, Quantity

The baseline, current, and target values of an objective KPI must use the same unit of measurement. The unit of measurement that you select when creating an objective KPI applies to all of its values by default. We recommend customizing this field to include values specific to your organization. For more information, contact your administrator.

Permission Sets

To use this feature, users must have the following permission sets assigned to their profiles:

  • To view and edit objective KPI records: CSC - Customer Success
  • To view objective KPI records only: CSC - Participant User

For more information, see Assigning and Removing Permission Sets.

Managing Objective KPIs

You can create, view, edit, and delete objective KPIs to manage their details efficiently.

Creating Objective KPIs

You can create an objective KPI and associate it with:

  • A new objective. You can do this when creating a new objective from either the Actions panel or Success Tracker. This enables you to create objective KPIs with values up to two decimal places.

  • An existing objective. You can do this from:

    • The objective's record page
    • The Objective KPIs tab
    • Success Tracker

    This enables you to create objective KPIs with values up to four decimal places.

An objective KPI can only have one objective associated with it. However, an objective can have multiple objective KPIs.

For more information, see Creating Objective KPIs.

Viewing Objective KPIs

You can view objective KPIs in the following ways:

  • View all objective KPIs in your org in the Objective KPIs tab
  • View objective KPIs associated with a single objective on the objective's record page, in the Objective KPIs related list in the Related tab
  • View an overview of your objective KPIs in the Objective KPIs section of the Record Details panel in Success Tracker

When selecting an objective and opening the Record Details panel of Success Tracker, you can view the following objective KPI information:

  • Description
  • Target Date
  • Completion
Note:

The completion is set to Not Available when:

  • Either the current value or the target value is not specified for the objective KPI
  • The baseline value is the same as the target value for the objective KPI

In the Record Details panel, you can also:

  • Click an objective KPI's description to open its record page.
  • Edit the objective KPIs of the currently viewed objective by clicking Edit. This opens the Edit Objective KPIs window where you can also add new objective KPIs to your objective, as well as delete an existing objective KPI.
  • Confirm the status or your objective KPI represented as one of the following badges:
    • Overdue. An objective KPI is overdue if it is still incomplete when its target date is earlier than the current date.
    • On Track. An objective KPI is on-track if neither its target has been reached nor its completion is 100%.
    • Completed. An objective KPI is completed when its current value matches or exceeds the target value.

Editing Objective KPIs

You can edit an objective KPI:

  • From the Objective KPIs related list in the Related tab of the related objective's record page
  • In Success Tracker, if the related objective is associated with either a success plan or an account
  • In the Objective KPIs tab

For more information, see Editing Objective KPIs.

Deleting Objective KPIs

You can delete an objective KPI:

  • In the Create Objective and Edit Objective windows, when either creating or editing the objective related to the objective KPI that you want to delete
  • From the record page of the objective KPI that you want to delete
  • From the record page of the objective that the objective KPI is associated with
  • In the Objective KPIs tab
  • In the Record Details panel of Success Tracker if the related objective is associated either with an account or a success plan

For more information, see Deleting Objective KPIs.