Who can use this feature?
- Global admins or users with advanced permissions
- Available on all plans
Lifecycle status attributes contain pre-defined stages to automatically track time between each one until an "end stage" is reached. An account can be going through multiple lifecycles and progress differently between them, such as in the "Onboarding" stage of the customer journey and the "Integration" stage of the onboarding process.
Customer Journey Stage
- Onboarding
- Adoption
- Nurture
- Advocate
Onboarding Stage
- Kickoff
- Business Discovery
- Integration
- Training & UAT
- Live
Modify a lifecycle status option
Totango may add lifecycle attributes to your Data Model when you install SuccessBLOCs. Commonly-used lifecycles include customer journey stage, onboarding stage, risk status, and escalation status.
Editing an end stage is not possible for existing stages.
- From Settings, expand Data Management > Data Modeler.
- Search for the lifecycle status you want to modify, and click to view properties.
The names of the stages appear, listed in descending order. - Disable stages that you don't use, edit stage names, or add your own stages as needed. Drag and drop to re-order stages.
- Click Save.
The changes to the stage appear within the selected lifecycle attribute for team members to choose from.
Create a new lifecycle status attribute
Create your own lifecycle status attributes to track custom processes.
- From Settings, expand Data Management > Data Modeler.
- On the Account Information tab, click +Add Account Attribute.
- Click Lifecycle.
- Configure properties for the attribute:
- Display name: The name of the lifecycle.
- Description: Appears on hover over, but this value is not required.
- Dimension: Choose the dimension for categorization purposes.
- Flow: Choose the overall journey flow for reporting purposes.
-
Other: Choose options for source, editability, and default value.
Choose API. (Salesforce is for legacy Salesforce connectors only.) If you do not plan to update this stage in Totango, clear the Editability check box. However, in most cases, Totango will be the source of truth for the stages, so you will want to allow your teams to update this value manually or via SuccessPlay.
- Click Add New to add a new stage.
- Enter a name, choose a color, and click to save the stage.
- Continue adding stages until all stages are represented for the lifecycle.
- Choose one or more end stages.
You must have at least one end stage. Your process may have two, such as "Opportunity Closed Won" or "Opportunity Closed Lost." Either status will stop the time tracking of the lifecycle.
- Click Save.
You can set stages for lifecycle attributes individually on an account profile, using a rapid insight form, using a SuccessPlay, editing a segment in bulk, or by data integration.
If setting a stage from an integration, the value must match the name of the stage (case sensitive).
Analyze days between stages
As soon as an active account has a value set for any lifecycle status attribute, Totango automatically tracks the duration the account spends in each stage. This cumulative data is available in standard attributes that start with "Days in".
Example: Onboarding Stage (48 days total)
- Kickoff (12 days)
- Business Discovery (6 days)
- Integration (20 days)
- Training & UAT (10 days)
- Live (end)
Once an end stage is reached, the counting of days stops. Moving the account to another stage after the end stage restarts the clock on the new stage.
The "Days in [lifecycle]" attribute considers only lifecycle attributes that have an active status, and not on complete/end status. Additionally, if the a stage is removed or made NULL, the clock counter will be restarted and all of the count up to that point will be reset. Or if the stage of an account is moved back to a previous stage, then the days of that stage will be reset.
See more for using lifecycle filters in segments.
FAQs
Question: If I clear the option to allow my lifecycle attribute from being edited in Totango, what happens to any active SuccessPlays that have an update action based on this attribute? Will the SuccessPlay still automatically update the attribute's value?
Answer: Yes. If you have an active SuccessPlay based on a lifecycle attribute but later remove the edit option of the lifecycle attribute, Totango will continue allowing the SuccessPlay to update the attribute value, but the attribute will no longer be editable from within the UI to be updated manually.
Question: Can I update lifecycle status attributes using API or CSV?
Answer: Yes, you can use any available integration (API, CRM, Data Warehouse or CSV), same as any attribute. Please remember that the updated values must comply with the predefined stages, otherwise the update will fail.
Question: Why doesn't an account have a value for "Days in"?
Answer: Totango stops calculating Days in Lifecycle for canceled accounts.
Question: I have a custom attribute set up for "Go-live date." How does this attribute correspond to my onboarding lifecycle stage of "Live"?
Answer: The custom attribute tracks the date value for when the customer went live. The ending lifecycle status stops the counter of the overall days in the entire lifecycle. You can set up a SuccessPlay to automatically move the onboarding stage to "Live" when that attribute is updated.