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Seek List Configuration and Limits

By August 29, 2019March 10th, 2020No Comments

Seek List Configuration and Limits

How do I setup a new Seek List? What are all the options in a Seek List? What limitations should I be aware of?

What Is a Seek List?

Seek Lists are dynamic dialing lists that the PowerDialer uses to present reps’ records for dialing according to business rules set by administrators and managers.

Administrators and managers can create Seek Lists and invite reps to the lists. Reps are then able to launch the lists and have the records presented to them to be dialed using the “Next Record” button.

Why Use a Seek List?

Seek Lists refresh each hour, pulling in the appropriate records and removing records that are no longer qualified to be in the list. Because of this, reps will have a consistent flow of the most qualified records without having to search through Salesforce looking for qualified records to call.

Creating a New Seek List

We recommend that only administrators or managers be given the permission to create Seek Lists for their reps. Creating and managing Seek Lists not only requires knowledge of how to create them but also knowledge of Salesforce data and the sales organization’s processes.
Creating a Seek List is broken into two parts – The main Seek List settings and the individual dialing rules. Each Seek List contains multiple dialing rules. Each dialing rule contains the filters and criteria for which records are pulled into a dialing rule. Dialing rules are then prioritized within the Seek List so that reps are always working on eligible records from the highest prioritized dialing rule first.

To Create a New Seek List

  1. Go to the InsideSales tab
  2. Click Seek Lists
  3. Click New Seek List or edit an existing Seek List
  4. Configure Seek List main settings (details below)
  5. Click Save or Quick Save on Seek List

Seek List Settings – Details

  1. Name: The name of the Seek List. Be as descriptive but brief as possible since it will be seen by reps when they are choosing which dialer list to use and is also used in reports.

    Caller ID:  This feature is now controlled by the Click to Call settings by each user. There is no need to enter anything.

    Seek List Type:  Choose to create a query based list and build out your criteria with dialing rules OR use a existing Salesforce report.

    Limit Calling Times: Limits calls to only take place to prospects in specific allowable calling times at the prospects time. The prospects time is based on the area code of the Standard Phone field in Salesforce.

    • Business Hours: Ensures that calls are not placed to prospects where the dialed phone number is outside of the hours of 8AM to 6PM
    • Consumer Hours: Ensures that calls are not placed to prospects where the dialed phone number is outside of the hours of 8AM to 8PM
    • None: Places no restriction around the time in which a prospect can be called

    Time Between Calls- Time Between Calls blocks the same record from coming back into the dialer list repeatedly in a short period of time. For example, if a record does not change sufficiently from one hour to the next, the dialing rule may cause the record to be pulled in again because it still meets the dialing rule criteria.

    This setting ensures that even if a record technically meets the filter criteria for a dialing rule that the record is not pulled back into the list until the time between calls expires.

    This is a valuable feature to help tie-in Selling Best Practices.

    Use Salesforce Email Templates- This feature was built for a legacy version of PowerDialer. There is no need to complete this field.

    Grant List Access- Determines who will have access to use the Seek List.

    • Visible to only me: Sets the list to only be seen and accessible to the creator of the Seek List
    • Visible to all users: Allows a list to be accessible to all reps who have access to the InsideSales product suite
    • Visible to certain groups of users: Allows a list to be accessible by specific reps, user roles, or subordinates

    NOTE Be very selective of who is invited to a Seek List. As more reps are selected, the slower the Seek Lists will refresh and there are limits to the number of records that can be queued in a Seek List.

    Show agents query names- Displays within the dialer panel the name of the dialing rule that a record qualified for to the rep as they load records.

    Include records without phone numbers- Include records with invalid or blank phone number fields. By default, these records will be excluded from the list.

Creating Dialing Rules

The Dialing Rules are the filters and criteria that add or remove records from the list. Each Dialing Rule has a maximum of 7,000 records that can be pulled in at any given hour.

Each dialing rule can be scheduled to run during specific hours of the day. For example, you determine your team should only prospect to new leads between the hours of 9am – 12pm. You would set that parameter using time blocks here.

To Create Dialing Rules

  1. Click the InsideSales tab
  2. Click Seek Lists
  3. Click New Seek List or Edit an existing Seek List
  4. Click Add New Rule
  5. Configure Dialing Rule (details below)
  6. Click Save on Dialing Rule
Note: If a dialing rule is created that has greater than 7,000 eligible records, all records beyond 7,000 will be excluded. To determine which 7,000 records will be pulled in, adjust the sort criteria on the dialing rule.

Dialing Rule Options

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Query Name- The name of the dialing rule. This name should be descriptive as it may be displayed to reps as they place calls and is used for reporting on dialing rule effectiveness.

Description- A brief description of the dialing rule to help you identify each dialing rule within a seek list. Typically includes what criteria is being targeted by each dialing rule.

Data Source- You have the option to choose between setting the criteria manually or using the criteria from a pre-existing report within Salesforce.

  • Query: Allows you to specify the dialing rule criteria manually from within the dialing rule
  • Report: Allows dialing rule criteria to be determined by a Salesforce Report

Object to Call- Defines the primary filter object. If a company desired to dial on Contacts, then Contact should be selected as the object to call.

  • Lead: Will pull leads into the dialing rule. When a user requests the next record, a lead record will be loaded
  • Contact: Will pull contacts into the dialing rule. When a user requests the next record, a contact record will be loaded
  • Account: Will pull accounts into the dialing rule. When a user requests the next record, an account record will be loaded
  • Opportunity: Will present a rep with a contact or an account related to the opportunity that meets the dialing rule criteria. When the opportunity object is selected, a secondary drop-down appears where contact or account can be selected.

Calling Hours- Limits calls to only take place to prospects in specific allowable calling times at the prospects time. The prospects time is based on the area code of the phone number recorded in Salesforce.

All selected hours in Calling Hours must be within the selected Limit Calling Times field if being used.

Limit Calls To- Determines when a rep loads the next record in the list if the rep is allowed or not allowed to see the next record. If a rep is unable to see a record, the record is skipped for that rep and the next record is loaded.

  • No Limit: Applies no limit to the Seek List – meaning that as reps move through the list, they can see records that they are not the owner of. For example, Rep A can load records owned by Rep B
  • Record Owner: Limits records to only those who are marked as the actual owner of a record. This restricts the ability for one rep to see the records owned by another rep
  • Account Team: Limits records to only those who own accounts or are listed as a member of the account team. This option only appears if the selected object on the dialer list is Accounts. Account Teams are a Salesforce feature that must be configured ahead of time.

Dials are Between- Sets the minimum and maximum for the amount of times that an individual has been called to be eligible for the specific dialing rule.

Filter Fields- The filter fields allow a manager to set rules for when a record qualifies for a specific dialing rule.

Advanced Options- Allows advanced logic with the filters – for example, a dialing rule can be created that requires a prospect meet rule 1 AND 2, or 1 AND 3 but not 2. The advanced filtering follows standard Salesforce custom list view logic.

Record Sort- Specifies how record that are pulled into the dialing rule are sorted. A maximum of two sorts are allowed.

Save & Close- Saves all changes and closes the dialing rule page, returning you to the Seek List editor page.

Quick Save- Saves all changes without closing the dialing rule window so you can continue making changes.

View Query Results- Performs a ‘Quick Save’ and opens a new window and lists the records that will be pulled in using the current criteria you have set in the dialing rule. These query results will not consider the current time, parameter selected in ‘Limit Calling Times’ setting, or ‘Time Between Calls’.

Cancel- Closes the current window and discards all changes made since the last time the dialing rule was saved.

Using Your Seek Lists in the Click to Call Panel

The click to call panel is in the left column in Salesforce Classic. In Salesforce Lightning the click to call panel will be in the Utility Bar at the bottom of Salesforce. Generally, it will be named ‘PowerDialer’ or ‘Phone’ but, it could be named differently depending on how your administrators configured the Utility Bar.

To Use Your Seek List in the Click-to-Call Panel

  1. Click the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the Click to Call panel to access the Settings menu
  2. Click the drop-down list under DIALER LIST and select the list you want to use
  3. Click the Apply button at the bottom of the menu
  4. Click the Next Record button on the Click to Call panel
  5. Once the first record appears, you can follow your normal process to call the record
  6. After your call is finished and you are ready to move to the next record repeat steps 5 and 6 for each record to move through the seek list
Note: If the rep receives a message stating, ‘No records to dial’ or the list is missing from the DIALER LIST drop down in the settings, it means the rep has dialed all records available to them and will need to wait until the next hourly refresh happens which occurs at the top of the hour or their manager/administrator needs to make sure they have records that both qualify for the list and are also visible to the rep in Salesforce.

Seek List Best Practices

When possible, try to use these operators in the Filter Fields section: Equals, No Equal To, Greater Than, Less Than, Less or Equal, Greater or Equal

Practices To Avoid

While there may be instances where some of the below practices will need to be used in a seek list, keep in mind that limitations in query sizes in Salesforce can cause these types of queries to time out and prevent seek lists from running if pulling in too much data.

When possible, avoid using these operators int eh Filter Fields section: Contains, Does Not Contain, Starts With, Includes, Excludes

Avoid Filtering on Text Fields

Text fields are not indexed by Salesforce. Filtering on text fields will ALWAYS make a query take longer to run, and thus more likely to timeout in Salesforce. Other fields are also not indexed by default.

Avoid Assigning Users to a Seek List by ‘Role’

Be as specific as possible, only invite by role if everyone in that role should see the list. If many users are assigned to that Role, you may hit the record limit of 7,000

Avoid ‘Limit Calls to Only Owner’ (especially if you’ve assigned the list to Roles that include non-InsideSales users).

This slows down the dialer cache immensely.

Seek List Limitations

Seek Lists are a very useful tools and can improve the speed and the quality of a rep’s daily interactions. There are however, some small limitations on what you can do with seek lists.

One of the most notable limitations is not being able to view the progress of individual reps dialing through a specific list. While you can view the List Progress Report in the InsideSales tab to see the progress all your reps are making on each list, you cannot view the progress of an individual user.

The other limitation that people notice, while it doesn’t cause many problems, it does come up: The seek lists refresh every hour, typically on the hour mark. This can cause issues if the seek list is not configured correctly. We generally recommend setting the times for your dialing rules to start at about an hour before the reps will start dialing the list and to end about an hour after it should end. This will ensure that any records that should qualify for that list when the reps start dialing are already pulled in to the list and ready for the reps to start calling.

You may run in to some small, very specific, limitations like these and we ask that you contact us any time you see anything that is limiting your productivity or slowing you down.

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