The call owner is important in Gong for a variety of reasons, such as being able to search for the call, and for scoring, feedback, statistics, and more.
This article focuses on how we identify the call owner in web conference calls. Other call sources (i.e. telephony calls) have a more straightforward method for deciding ownership. However, for web conferences, owner attribution is not simple, and is based on a set of cascading rules that we’ll explain here.
Note that for web conference calls, team members must have data capture turned on, and their calendar connected.
Terminology
First things first...let's talk about the terminology we'll use in this article. For each of the three apps used to schedule, host, and record a call, there are unique terms used to describe who the meeting is attributed to.
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Organizer is the term used by calendar apps to describe the person who sets up the call. For example, the call organizer could be an AE setting up a call with prospects for themselves, or an SDR setting up a call on behalf of the AE.
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Host is the term used by web conferencing apps to describe the person who hosts the call. Typically, this is the person who manages the call in the web conferencing app, for example, they can mute all participants and remove participants, and so on. Some web conferencing apps allow for more than one host.
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Owner is the Gong term we use to describe the person who we attribute the call to. In Gong, the ownership is attributed to a single person.
How Gong assigns ownership
Gong knows about web conference meetings by:
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Scanning the calendar of recorded team members, and finding meetings that the team member organized or was invited to.
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You adding assistant@gong.io as a participant to the meeting
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You emailing the meeting (as an attachment) to the assistant: assistant@gong.io.
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You asking Gong to schedule a meeting using the Schedule button in the homepage
Ownership is calculated before the call, and then again following the call. Therefore ownership can potentially change after the call takes place.
Before the call
Before the call takes place, Gong assigns ownership based on the following prioritized and cascading conditions. These conditions define ownership while the call is in “scheduled” status, until the call actually takes place. If the calendar event changes in some way, the owner may change.
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Was the web conference meeting scheduled via the homepage?
If so, this team member is assigned ownership of the call.
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If the previous condition does not apply: Is there a meeting URL in the calendar event that's associated with a recorded team member?
If so, this team member is assigned ownership of the call.
Meeting URLs are configured by the team manager or by the team member themselves, and can be found in the team member settings page. Both the Associated Meeting URLs and the Gong consent page link can identify the owner of the call.
For example, an SDR sets up a meeting on behalf of an AE, and includes the AE's personal meeting URL, Gong knows to assign ownership to that AE.
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If the previous condition does not apply: Is Gong set up with access to the API of the web conferencing provider?
If Gong is able to establish contact with the web conferencing provider via the API (depending on set up and availability of the API), Gong can find out from the provider who the URL in the meeting belongs to in the call provider’s registry, and assign ownership.
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If the previous condition does not apply: Is the calendar organizer a team member set up to be a recorded user in Gong?
If so, Gong assigns this team member ownership.
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If the previous condition does not apply: Is another recorded team member invited to the meeting?
If so, Gong assigns ownership to this team member. If there are more than one, Gong assigns ownership to the team member with the most recorded calls in Gong.
Tip
Transfer call ownership from SDR to AE
If an SDR books a meeting for an AE, and also wishes to transfer ownership of the call to the AE (so that the call is related to the AE in Gong, and not the SDR), do the following:
Before the call, when the meeting is first scheduled, transfer the event to the AE to make them the meeting host/organizer.
In addition, depending on the conferencing system deployed, if you connect to the API (in Conferencing system settings), and if you use the AE's conference link, then Gong knows to assign the AE as host. This works for Zoom (native and non-native) and GTM, and there may be more.
After the call
Once the call has taken place, Gong processes the call and verifies & assigns final ownership based on the following prioritized and cascading conditions.
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Did the meeting owner, as determined before the call, attend the meeting as planned?
If so, this team member remains the call owner.
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If the previous condition does not apply: Did a recorded team member host the meeting?
If we can identify the host by their name according to the web conference provider, we’ll assign them ownership.
If not, we then check whether a recorded team member presented (shared their screen) during the meeting. If so, ownership is attributed to them.
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If the previous condition does not apply: Did any recorded team members attend the meeting?
If we can identify, by name, that a recorded team member attended the meeting, ownership is attributed to them.
When we identify more than one recorded team members as attendees, we do not modify ownership from the person who was attributed ownership before the call began, even if they did not attend the meeting.
Tip
Learn how to change the ownership of a call here.