Planhat is a powerful tool and can be configured in many different ways to fit your business set-up.
Below we outline the basics to get up and running with Planhat, and you will also find this in the form of a set-up Workflow in your Portal.
Needless to say, if you have any questions, ask your dedicated CSM.
Step 2: Making your data easy to use
Step 3: Customising your Planhat tenant
Step 4: Getting Some Quick Wins!
1. Getting your customer data into Planhat
This is an obvious first step, but the key is determining what data matters for your team, where it is "clean" and where you can best access it.
High level, we believe there are 5 types of data that add value to Planhat. You can learn more about them here, but in summary, they are:
Customer Data - who your customers are
End-User Data - who your contacts and users are
Revenue Data - how much they are paying and over what time period
Conversation Data - all customer communications, like emails and tickets
Product Usage Data - how they are using your product
🚀 Quick tip: As an Admin, your first goal should be to get 3 of these data types into Planhat.
There are several ways you can bring your customer data in:
Excel imports - In upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com), you can bulk import (via spreadsheet) via the Federated Search box. For a detailed guide to importing data check out this article.
Data Warehouse, API & Tracking Script - Depending on where you store your customer data, you might find a simple POST to our API the most convenient solution or even if you use Snowflake, you can use our native Snowflake integration. For Product Usage data, your team may choose to use our simple tracking script. For authentication and other API details please see our online technical docs.
Manually adding data - This can work well if you have fewer than 100 customers. You get full control over the data entry and it's also a great opportunity to clean up your data in case it's not 100% organized today. Also, depending on how many new customers you're adding, you can add new customers as they sign up!
Your CSM and TAM will work with you during your Kick-Off call to determine the best source of each data type so we can get your data in quickly and accurately.
Syncing your Email and Calendar
If you're using Gmail or Outlook, syncing your email and calendar with Planhat takes only a few minutes and is a very easy quick win for your team.
✍️ Integrating email is controlled by each individual user and all they need to do is:
Navigate to your profile
Select the Email tab
Enable access and select the folders you would like to sync with Planhat
This article provides more details on how we treat Emails.
2. Making Your Data Easy to Use
Once customer data is in Planhat your aim should be to make it as accessible as possible to both your team and any other team thinking about your customers.
1. Create and organise your fields
You can create fields on any model in Planhat, in the "Data" Global Tool. These fields can become part of your dashboards, automations and much more.
✍️ Have a think about specific fields you want to track in Planhat across all models. They can be fields you later populate through integrations or data you want to manage solely in Planhat.
🚀 Quick tip: It's easy to focus only on quantitative fields, but you should also consider qualitative fields. For example: on the Company level, what objectives does your customer have? On an End User level, how strong is your relationship with them?
2. Segment your data (filters)
Segmenting your customers is another foundational aspect of Customer Success. In Planhat, we use Filters to group similar Customers, End Users, Invoices or any other data type. They are incredibly flexible, enabling you to create hyper-targeted filters and very specific cohorts of data. While filters are less central in upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com) compared to original Planhat (app.planhat.com), you can still create Global Filters within the "Data" Global Tool.
✍️ Here are some basic ideas to get started: Segmenting data in Planhat.
🚀 Pro tip: Don't forget to choose what data to display in each Filter - selecting the right columns makes a huge difference!
3. Create Conversation types
One of the key ways you capture data in Planhat is one of the simplest - logging meeting notes. We call these Conversations, and we template them by creating Conversation Types.
✍️ Create your custom Conversation Types. We suggest you name them based on intent or purpose - for example, Training call or Renewal discussion, as opposed to just 'call' or 'meeting'. We think that having 8 - 12 Conversation types is the right balance of specificity and usability.
In upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com), Conversation Types are a standard field on the Conversation model - you can read more here.
Step 3 - Customise your tenant further
1. Add logo and colour palette
We want Planhat to reflect your branding so your customers and team members feel it is a familiar place. There is a lot of customisation you can do in Planhat, but 2 simple things are adding your logo and your colour palette. Creating your palette will enable you to create on-brand dashboards throughout Planhat.
✍️ In upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com), you set up your logo and colour palette in the "Settings" Global Tool.
2. Add email templates
Email templates are a great time saver in Customer Success. In a perfect world, actions that always require an email follow-up have the template ready and waiting as soon as the task is done. When driving tech touch approaches you also need pre-built templates ready to be sent to your Users.
In Planhat your email templates can be plain text or HTML (plain text is best practice if sending from a CSM) and your templates can include merge tags that reference any fields you have on the Company or End User profile.
Further, your email templates can be associated with specific Workflow steps or Conversation types, or just be kept in a library for when that important moment arises.
✍️ Set up your Email templates in the "Settings" Global Tool. We recommend you organise them into different folders using clear naming conventions and try to cover all repeatable processes so your team can save time.
3. Create Lifecycle phases
Lifecycle Phases are a foundational part of Customer Success. With them, you can easily see where your Customers are in their journey and they naturally become a part of automations and filters you build over time.
✍️ This article shows you how to set them up: Adding Lifecycle Phases. In upgraded Planhat, Phase is a standard field on the Company model, which you can customize in the "Data" Global Tool.
4. Create reasons for churn
Creating and logging reasons for churn will help you build a bigger picture of success and failure over time.
✍️ This article explains how to add reasons for churn and what you can do when you start using them. In upgraded Planhat, Reasons is a standard field on the Churn model, which you can customize in the "Data" Global Tool.
Step 4 - Getting Some Quick Wins!
Bringing Planhat to the next level by looking at workflow, automations and dashboards.
1. Design your initial Workflows
This one is a bigger initiative but very doable - plus we are here to help as needed!
There are two main types of Workflows: Projects and Sequences. They provide many flexible options to customise paths based on time, rules or dependencies.
These articles provide an overview of Workflows and tips and guidance when building them out.
2. Create your initial automations
Automations work on an If this / Then that logic, for example, "If a Company Health Score climbs above 8 / Then create an Opportunity."
✍️ You can read more about them here.
3. Build your first Dashboard
You can visualize and analyze your data with Planhat Dashboard and Presentation Pages - read more here.