Potential product usage triggers to trigger automated emails etc.
Executive summary
We want to develop a backlog of potential triggers or moments within the user/team experience of GitLab that could be a sign that the team could benefit from further adoption of GitLab whether it's a paid plan or additional stages or inviting colleagues.
We will utilize this backlog in the future to test educating users in these moments seeing if we can drive the desired action, to start these will be emails but future iterations could include in product recommendations.
For additional context, this usage trigger list is a follow-up ask from an e-group offsite, so we want to make sure it covers as many product areas as possible with individual stages and PMs providing items for potential triggers wherever possible.
Note that no email is planned, this exercise is just to brainstorm about potential triggers and create a list.
Example triggers
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Onboarding: what free usage/actions does it take to successfully adopt your stage as a free team?
- eg: What usage/actions should we look to understand if the free version of your stage is being utilized and what are potential users to target who may find it valuable? For example, If a new namespace is using Create but has not yet adopted Verify, we could trigger an email/message specifically to teams users Create but not the free version of Verify to introduce them to Verify features
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Conversion: What free usage/actions within your stage are indicative that a team could benefit from some of the paid features within your stage and what paid feature(s) could we pitch them on?
- eg: A free group on GitLab.com is utilizing SAST scanning, we could list this in the Conversion column as an action and within the trigger, we could pitch them on the benefits of FUZZ testing which is available in Ultimate/Gold.
-
Upgrade: What Premium/Silver usage/actions within your stage are indicative that a team could benefit from Ultimate/Gold and what paid feature(s) could we pitch them on?
- eg:
-
Expansion: What usage/actions within your stage are indicative that a team may find another specific stage valuable or may benefit from inviting more colleagues to GitLab and what stage and/or team feature could we pitch them on?
- eg: If a paid customer has seat utilization >90%, trigger a reminder to buy more licenses
The ask
We'd like each stage to fill in each usage/action column where they can think of potential triggers. Our goal is to highlight what could be low hanging fruit education moments so if you're able to come up with usage/action moments please limit them to a maximum of three to ensure we're capturing what we believe are our most impactful moments to start. We can always expand on this list in the future.
Stage Name | PM Name | Free Onboarding | Conversion | Upgrade | Expansion |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Secure | @tmccaslin & @matt_wilson (suggested by @cblake) | At first MR pipeline, ask, "Have you looked at the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) results?" | A free group on GitLab.com is utilizing SAST scanning, ask "Have you tried dependency testing which is available in Ultimate/Gold?" | cell | At first MR pipeline or Project level security dashboard ask "Have you invited your security peer to check out the Group Security Dashboard" |
Secure | @stkerr and @matt_wilson (suggested by @cblake) | cell | cell | cell | At first use of Group Security Dashboard, ask "Have you tried fuzz testing? It's easy to add to catch unknown vulnerabilities." |
Verify | @jreporter and @jheimbuck_gl | If a Free customer is using review apps we can prompt them to upgrade to be able to leave feedback in MRs from them through Visual Reviews | If Free User is using Review Apps they can then upgrade to get browser performance stats from them. | ||
Verify | @jreporter @thaoyeager | If a free user is using pipelines ask them "Have you used Pipelines for Merge Requests?" | When a free user on pipelines for merge requests is using them, they can be prompted to "Keep you master green by using pipelines for Merged Results. Upgrade to Premium." | Once upgraded to Premium, the user can be triggered to enable Merge trains | cell |
Verify/Configure | @jreporter @nagyv-gitlab | If a free CI user has masked a variable, we can prompt them to use the JWT authentication variable for hashicorp vault | Once the Free user adds the JWT and authenticates with Vault, "Do you want to automatically inject secrets from Vault? Upgrade to Premium." | Eventually, there will be more Secrets Management Features, in Ultimate that we can trigger to. | cell |
Plan | PM = @gweaver (suggested by @cfoster3 ) | cell | cell | cell | Highlight the "Create Merge Request" feature to issues with a certain amount of activity but no attached MR -- this might require an external asset that explains MRs as a "workspace for code changes" |
Release | @ogolowinski | ||||
Configure | @nagyv-gitlab |
The user has .tf files in their repo |
We propose them to use GitLab's IaC features | Nothing yet | Nothing yet |
Configure | @nagyv-gitlab |
The project has a KUBE_* environment variable defined |
We propose them to use the GitLab Kubernetes Agent | It's a GitLab Premium feature today | Nothing yet |
Code Review/Source Code | @phikai @danielgruesso | Optional MR Approvals - users clicking approve when there are no configured or required approval rules. | Suggest required approvals for the project. | ||
Code Review/Source Code | @phikai @danielgruesso | Code Owners - users add or a CODEOWNERS file is detected in the project | Suggest code owner approvals for the project as a required approval rule. | ||
Monitor | @sarahwaldner | If the user is utilizing Issues, "Did you know that you can manage your Incidents in GitLab?" | If someone is using Incidents, email them "Automate Incident response with on-call scheduled management in GitLab." | If we see an account using on-call schedule management, "Manage NOC response in GitLab!" | |
cell | cell | cell | cell | cell | cell |