Allow sellers to build their perfect prospect and customer stakeholder hierarchy within a user friendly interface directly on Salesforce records.
Highlights
- Use existing data or placeholder information to seamlessly build comprehensive org charts.
- Implement customizations tailored specifically to your business use cases and experience
- Automate org chart creation with predefined templates.
- Build Reports and Dashboards to analyze the insights defined on the charts.
When working with various companies and stakeholders, it can easily become overwhelming to organize and identify contacts in an easy manner – especially when it comes to large organizations. While Salesforce reports, List views and Related lists can be used to identify and group them, ensuring the data is updated and easy to work with for the end user can be a hit or miss.
SalesMethods brings a seamlessly integrated solution to the table, enhancing your sales team’s overall experience when establishing relationships within their Accounts, be it external or internal.
OrgChartPlus (OCP) is native to Salesforce and allows a visual representation of information your team knows, as well as placeholders for information they would like to know (such as a specific role within a department). Regardless of the sales methodologies (such as MEDDICC/ MEDDPICC, SCOTSMAN, BAIN) or ways of working being used within your organization, OrgChartPlus aims to bring all the information together to facilitate Account management, targeting, and, ultimately, deal closing.
This in-depth review will showcase the main OrgChartPlus features, ideal use cases, and setup effort, as well as how fast your users can adopt this new experience.
Features
The end goal of implementing such a tool is to always have the latest information available, with a simple way to make updates as the relationships progress through the sales process. This is applicable for Account Management, Opportunity Management or even Renewal Management. Making an interactive org chart available to the team is not only a mechanism to visualize the existing information, but also a way to allow the teams to properly plan ahead – including how to target and measure existing and new relationships.
Let’s take a closer look at how each of the OrgChartPlus functionalities plays a role in creating this overall experience.
Org Chart
The focus of the entire product is the org chart. This is sure to upgrade your prospecting and sales processes from the get go. With the option to choose from multiple views, updating information, leaving notes, creating relationships, and more, a comprehensive view of the account will ultimately become available in one screen.
Embed the Org Chart on Record Pages
First of all, the chart functionality is a Visualforce page that can be added to either Page Layouts or Record Pages. For a seamless experience, it is recommended to create a separate tab and increase the height to 600px.
Hierarchical Chart or Decision Tree
Out of the box, the OrgChartPlus Visualforce pages can be added on Accounts and Opportunities, with a slight difference between the two as to how the chart should be used when actively building or working with it. With some help from SalesMethods, OrgChartPlus can also be added to custom objects as needed.
While on Accounts, the hierarchy may seem more insightful, on the Opportunity level the person’s title might not matter as much in comparison with their influence or involvement in the Opportunity. Opportunity Contact Role is the standard in Opportunities as the role of a certain person may vary between different deals.For example, the Decision Maker might be a head of a department who will actually use the product, with a C-level reporting into them for said Opportunity.
Every time a new chart is created, this is actually an option you need to select, and instructions about how each of them work are provided on the screen. In the end, it’s a decision between using the “Reports To” Contact field or not.
Choose Your View
Once you have decided the chart type, imported the Contacts, and selected a name, the Chart is created and displayed within the Visualforce page. The Chart is actually only the first option you can work on, so let’s go through all three available ones:
- Chart: The default view when starting out, this drag and drop canvas allows you to build a comprehensive hierarchy, be it however simple or complex you need. Opting to use the “Reports To” field on the Contact in this component will also update the field as you go through, arranging or re-arranging the hierarchy.
- Matrix: A table-like view for users who enjoy the Excel-like experience. While this is not a hierarchy per say, the icons, attributes, and Contacts added in will also be reflected in the other views. Like Excel, you can use the keyboard to quickly update your relationship mappings.
- Molecule: This view option is great for reviewing the intimacy levels between your team and the stakeholders from a particular company, or those involved in a certain Opportunity.
Chart Actions
Within the canvas, your users will always be able to access additional actions, be it from a specific tile or general ones. Organizing the Contacts is a drag-and-drop activity, but you can set different parameters for each, choosing from readily available or custom options.
Your users will also have the possibility to import internal team members, add notes, and even export the entire chart in multiple formats. Similar actions are available for the other view types too.
Additionally, not all relationships are hierarchical or linear. OCP offers the option to choose between extra relationships to include and highlight while building the chart, be them informal or political relationships between Contacts to drive deeper insight.
No Data, No Problem!
When prospecting in a certain department and trying to fill in the gaps in your hierarchy, it may happen that certain stakeholders don’t exist yet in Salesforce. If you know that at some point this data will be required, you can easily create a placeholder and continue building the chart – you can even add attributes for them.
The Loading Bay sidebar offers the possibility to insert the placeholder then simply drag it where needed on the canvas. Simple!
Log Activity
Sales teams will always look forward to scheduling the next meeting with one of their Contacts, either as an intro or a follow-up related to a specific Opportunity. They are most likely already familiar with using Salesforce out of the box activities, but why should they have to navigate away from their charts to do this?
As of the latest OrgChartPlus version, users will also be able to directly create activities from the chart tiles, rather than navigating to individual Contacts. With a simple right click on the tile, new Tasks or Events can be created.
You can even find past Opportunities/Account involvement by each Contact with a simple double click. Previous Contact Roles, opinions, level of influence and any other attribute included in OCP are available. This insight is invaluable for new salespeople taking over established Accounts, giving a rich and complete history of past engagement.
Explore OrgChartPlus Configuration
The OrgChartPlus Config page is where all the background magic happens. It is your choice which sections you make use of, but considering how many changes are available, this page will most likely become your best friend during an OrgChartPlus implementation.
As you will notice below, your Company’s Competitors will be defined here by the Admin, and Team Members outside of Salesforce can also be made available by creating them as records of a Custom Object. Additionally, OrgChartPlus can be configured to work with Custom Objects as well, if Accounts or Opportunities does not suit your use case.
The Account and Opportunity chart configuration is a set of JSON parameters. This means that the sky’s the limit as far as what you can achieve within this tool.
While the file is blank at the beginning as only default parameters are used, you can select different parameters from the picklist in the top-right corner, insert them, and start making the changes you need. For example, these are the icons which you saw available on the Contact tiles, where influence, opinion, and intimacy can be selected.
Now that we have gone through how the parameters can be added, let’s actually try making a simple change using General Settings. These can be controlled at any point in time, as the entire functionality lies within the JSON editor.
For this example, we will hide the Molecule view for the Account charts, as the desire is for only the Chart and Matrix to be used. In under two minutes, this change is done!
Note: When clicking the General Settings in the list of parameters, you will also be presented with the below list of instructions to choose from before inserting the attribute in the file.
Interactive Template Builder
Offering your team the possibility to build hierarchies is the first step, but what if you could facilitate even more?
OrgChartPlus includes a template builder functionality, which you as the Admin can make use of in order to present your team with various templated hierarchies for different use cases. Match criteria can be applied to the Account or Opportunity initially, and, within the template itself, placeholder tiles can have dedicated match formulas to automatically populate Contacts when the chart is created – all without manual intervention.
These templates can be modified as you go if requirements change, and you can have as many of them as needed, for there is no imposed limit.
Reporting
In addition to the obvious functionality you would expect, all of the critical data input by your team in the charts, whether Accounts or Opportunities, is fully reportable. Not only that, but you don’t even have to build the Reports from scratch.
While access is still needed for the OCP Objects for all users who are going to consume these metrics, the SalesMethods team offers a package with 20+ Reports readily available for you to create your own Dashboards, embed on Record Pages, and tweak based on what your teams would like to see. On top of this, there are nine Report Types in case you decide to start from scratch.
As you can see in the example below, regardless how you decide to look at the data, the OCP Objects and available fields cater for all tastes.
Use Cases
The main use case of OrgChartPlus is obvious, and this product could already be what you’re searching for. However, at the same time the fact that it can be customized to your needs opens the gates for a lot more uses than you might have initially envisioned. Let’s dive into a couple things that you can easily add on top to further enhance the readily available version.
LinkedIn is a platform which most professionals and companies use nowadays, and this is where the latest information on your contact’s career journeys is stored. It will come as no surprise that many businesses opt to purchase LinkedIn Sales Navigator licenses for further insights and prospecting, which is exactly what we’re looking at here.
If the LinkedIn URL is something which you’re already using on Contact records, then adding the LinkedIn icon to easily identify that this information exists is something which can easily be added to your charts. All you need to do is import the files, create a static resource, then amending the JSON parameters to add the new icon.
One of the available options when building the organizational charts and adding Contact tiles is to also color code the header. You can do so manually, or you can set predefined colors to choose from based on different criteria. But what if the colors could just be chosen by default?
Let’s take a look at an example based on the Department, but keep in mind that this may be any other data point. By using this option, there will be consistency across the entire organization regardless of the user building or taking a look at the chart. By using a formula field, HEX color codes, and one line in your JSON configuration – voila, you have default colors!
You can then either still allow users to pick other colors, or enforce the defaults, which in this example would be the better way to go.
Impact
By simply enabling a comprehensive mapping and visualization experience with OrgChartPlus, sellers can easily choose their preferred way of looking at their data, while actually inputting data into the CRM which would otherwise only exist over email or other channels.
The positive impact is sure to be seen from the get go, considering that you can always keep building and scaling the tool as the business grows and needs change – with key metrics remaining fully reportable.
Setup
Getting OrgChartPlus up and running depends on what exactly you’re looking forward to making available to your users from the get go: the readily available option or additional customizations as well.
The initial step will always be the installation of the managed package from the OCP AppExchange listing, adding the Visualforce pages to your Lightning Record Pages or page layouts depending on your preference, and of setting up the licenses and permissions on either existing Profiles or Permission Sets for your users. All this is presented in minute detail through a storylane accessible right from the listing, which you can find here.
Alternatively, you could follow the route of making changes and adding parameters specific to your org. Then, you will need to decide how to go about the implementation and what the requirements are – similar to any other custom build which will have to be tested, signed off, and tweaked.
Support
While guides and documentation are provided to you from the get-go, OrgChartPlus is a highly customizable tool through the use of JSON parameters and the support team is ready to help you every step of the way. Whether you have a question about out of the box functionality or a custom change you’re looking into, you can reach out to support@salesmethods.com for assistance.
Pricing
The pricing structure for OrgChartPlus is as simple as setting up the tool itself. Starting at $30/user/month, you can make use of everything presented in this article with no additional costs for any customizations you may opt to implement.
Summary
Overall, OrgChartPlus is one tool which can not only enhance your sellers experience from the get-go, but also ensure that everything remains easy to use long term – even offering extra customizations specific to your business needs. With the ability to decide the look and feel, use additional custom fields or integrations, and even report on all the activity captured in the chart, ensuring adoption should be a breeze.
As it’s always easier to test drive the product yourself to get a closer look at specific functionality, feel free to reach out to the SalesMethods team for additional questions or a tailored demo.