Associate your CRM entities with Gong activities

Where to go: Company settings > Activity association

Associating activities such as calls and emails to your CRM entities enriches Gong so that you have proper context for your Gong activities. As there can be several accounts or deals that a conversation can be associated with, you can customize and control the association logic so that the association is tailored to your specific CRM implementation.

To get the most accurate associations, make sure the configurations reflect how data is stored in your CRM. For example, if you don’t store the deal owner details in the CRM, set the account owner to off.

You can test how changing the settings will affect associations. For more details see Simulate activity assocation

When you update your activity association:

• The settings are applied to new activities in Gong and not applied to existing activities.

• Existing tasks in the CRM are not updated with the new association settings.

CRM entity association stages

The different stages of CRM entity association are:

1. Finding contacts and accounts that correspond to the activity participants: As contacts in the CRM are associated with accounts, we can create a list of accounts based on the contacts found. If no contacts are found, you can specify what Gong should do.

2. Identifying the account most likely to be associated with the activity: If more than one account is found, specify the parameters for how Gong should choose the correct account to associate with the activity.

3. Identifying the deals most likely to be associated with the activity: Once we have associated an account, specify the parameters for how Gong should choose the correct deal to associate with the activity.

Viewing CRM entities in Gong

Once the association is made, we display the CRM objects, in all activities, such as on the call page, deals and accounts pages and deal insights.

Importance of CRM data accuracy

This algorithm allows for flexibility so that if the CRM hygiene is not complete, we will still be able to make accurate associations. However, there will still be scenarios where incorrect association could be made if CRM hygiene is not maintained.

Association options

The next stages have options for how we should relate to different personnas, such as account owners, or deal contacts, when attempting to associate a CRM entity with an activity. The options provide flexibility in the association logic for different ways of maintaining this information in your CRM. For example, what is the role of the deal owner in your process? do you maintain their details in your CRM and do they participate in all or most of the activities for the deal?

For each personna, set whether assocation should be:

• Off: select this option if this personna is not part of your CRM setup. For example, if you don’t maintain details of the deal owner in your CRM, or your deal owner is not always an activity participant, you may want to set the deal owner to Off.

• On: Optional: select this option if you want to prioritise accounts or deals where the personna is a participant, but still enable other accounts or deals to be associated with the activity. If one personna is present, that account or deal will be associated with the activity. If several of the personnas are present, we will continue to narrow down the association based on your settings.

• On: Mandatory: select this option when the personna must be an activity participant. In this scenario, if the personna isn’t participating, the activity will not be associated to either an account or deal.

Stage 1: Find CRM contacts and accounts

First, we find the CRM contacts that correspond to the activity participants. This is done by finding contacts with the same email or phone number as the contact in the activity. As CRM contacts are associated with an account, we can then get a list of accounts the activity can be associated with.

Note:

if you have duplicate contacts in your CRM both entries will be listed as possible contacts for the activity.

In some cases, the contacts may not have been added to the CRM yet. When no CRM contacts and accounts are found, choose whether to:

• Locate accounts with the same website domain as the participant’s email domain: If a participant’s email is [email protected] and there is an account whose website is www.acme.com, the account can be associated with the activity

• Don’t match activity to account: Gong will associate the activity to an account when the contacts are added to the CRM.

Once we have a list of accounts, we run the account association rules.

Stage 2: Associate to one account

The options to narrow down the list of accounts to associate are as follows:

Is the account owner a participant?

If there are participants from several different accounts, we assume that if an account owner is on the call, then the call is predominantly associated with that account.

1. Select whether we should associate according to the account owner. See Association options for an explanation of the settings:

   • Off

   • On: Optional

   • On: Mandatory

2. If you select On: optional or On: mandatory, you must provide the name of the CRM field you store the account owner in.

What to do if multiple accounts are still options?

If multiple accounts can still be associated with the activity, for example, there is a call with two account owners participating, we provide two tie breakers for selecting a single account:

• Related contacts: Select the account with more contacts participating in the activity. If out of two possible accounts, one account has 2 participants and the other has 4, select the account with 4 participants. If this tie breaker is activated and there is a single account, we associate the activity to that account.

• Recent activity: Select the account with the most recent entry in the CRM, such as the newer account, or the account with the most recent update. Included is the option to associate more than one account to the activity, as at this stage if a single account can’t be chosen, you might prefer to associate the activity to more than one account.

Stage 3: Associate to one deal

Once we know which account the activity is associated with, we can identify deals which the activity may have related to. If you don’t want your activities associated with deals, click Disable to disable deal association. The options to narrow down the list of deals are:

Create a list of potential deals

The list of deals includes those that were open around the time the conversation took place. Identifying the open deals can be complex if deals are not closed in the CRM or if the close date has passed but the deal is still open. In addition, conversations can take place either just before a deal is opened or just after a deal is closed.

Therefore, the list of deals is made up of:

Include or exclude deals

Set up filters to automatically include or exclude specific deals from being associated with activities as follows:

1. Select the CRM field you want to base your filter on.

2. Select Is or Is not to set whether the filter will include or exclude the deal.

3. Enter the values relevant for the filter.

4. Add more filters as necessary.

For example, exclude renewals by selecting the CRM field which contains the deal type. Select Is not and then Renewal.

Settings for personnas involved in the deal

Choose whether to associate deals based on which activity participants also have a role in the deal.

Is the deal owner a participant?

If there are participants from several different deals, we assume that if a deal owner is on the call, the call is predominantly related to that deal.

1. Select whether to associate based on if the deal owner is a participant. See Association options for an explanation of the settings:

   • Off

   • On: Optional

   • On: Mandatory

2. If you select On: Optional or On: Mandatory, you must select the name of the CRM field you store the deal owner in.

Is the deal contact a particpant?

Deal contacts (known as contact roles in Salesforce) are contacts with roles who are defined and the primary contact for the deal. If you do not use contact roles in your CRM, set this to Off. If there are participants from several deals, we assume that if a deal contact is on the call, the call is predominantly related to that deal.

1. Select whether to associate based on if the deal contacts in the activity. See Association options for an explanation of the settings:

   • Off

   • On: Optional

   • On: Mandatory

2. If you select On: Optional or On: Mandataory, you must select the name of the CRM field you store the deal contact in.

Is a team member working on the deal a participant?

If there are participants from several different deals, we assume that if a team member working on a deal is on the call, the call is predominantly related to that deal.

1. Select whether to associate based on if the team members working on the deal are participants. See Association options for an explanation of the settings:

   • Off

   • On: Optional

   • On: Mandatory

2. If you select On: Optional or On: Mandatory, you must select the name of the CRM field you store the deal owner in.

What to do if multiple deals are still options

If there are still multiple deals that can be associated with the activity, for example, there is a call with two deal owners participating, the options for selecting an account are:

• Related contacts: Select the deal with more contacts participating in the activity. If out of two possible deals, one has 2 participants and the other has 4, then select the deal with 4 participants. If this tie breaker is activated and there is a single deal, we associate the activity to that deal.

• Recent activity: Select the deal with the most recent activity in the CRM, such as the newer deal, or the deal with the most recent update. Included in this option is the option to associate your more than one deal to the activity. At this stage if a single account can’t be chosen, you might prefer to associate the activity to more than one deal.

Reassociating activities to CRM entities

As data is added to the CRM it can be necessary to reassess the association assigned when the activity occurred. For example, if a new account is generated, we may be able to associate an activity to an account that we had previously not found a relevant association for.

Creating, updating or deleting the following CRM entities triggers reassociating activities to CRM entities:

• CRM contacts

• CRM accounts

• CRM deals or opportunities

• Contact roles in a deal

Reassociation could result in activities which were originally associated to a specific deal is now reassociated with a different deal, or activities that weren’t associated to any deal may now be associated to a deal.

We update relevant activities that occurred up to one year prior to the current day.