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Streams

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What are Streams?

Streams are the core of Variance. Anything you follow in the system will flow into one of your Streams. To follow an Account or Contact you simple click Follow (clicking Unfollow, unsurprisingly, does the opposite):

Following accounts and adding them to streams is easy

You can see above that it's also possible to follow to your additional streams by just clicking the dropdown arrow. You can even create a new stream right from that interface.

Each Stream has a name, a type, and can be hooked up to a Slack channel if you also want to be alerted as you work off the actions your prospects and customers are taking. the Slack integrations page has a more detailed walkthrough showing just how easy that is to get set up.

Just 3 things to fill out and you're on your way to a new stream

Want to learn more about Streams?

Here are a few links to dig deeper.

Following, Filter By, Hidden

When you click into any stream you will see a few tabs at the top. There are three really important ones to how the stream works: 

  1. Following: These are the Accounts and Contacts that you are following in the stream. Any Accounts or Contacts in this list will have their events flow into your Stream.
  2. Filter By: This is where Event Types you add to the Stream go when you follow them. If you have no Accounts or Contacts followed in that stream, it will show you only that Event Type for all Accounts in your system. If you are following Accounts or Contacts it will only show you that specific Event Type for the Accounts and Contacts you've followed. (Think of Filter By as ... well ... a filter on your list of follows.)
  3. Hidden: These are the Event Types, Accounts, or Contacts you've specifically hidden from this stream. This means they will never show up.
Three simple lists can product complicated queries

Building Out Streams

Creating new Streams in Variance is easy. You simply click the +Add Stream button on the top right of your Streams page or you create it from any Account, Contact, or Event Type Follow dropdown. (You can also Duplicate existing Team Streams if that's an easier way to get started.)

But the hard part is knowing what kind of Streams to make. This very much depends on who you are.

Growth Sellers

If you're a Growth Seller, the easiest way to think about splitting out your Streams is either by stage or territory. For instance, you might have different Streams for customers who are in different Stages and move them around:

  • Trials
  • Recently Won
  • Growing Fast

Or you could do it by territory. Either geographically (California, Nevada, Texas) or industry (Technology, Power, Retail). It's easy and totally up to you.

Growth Operators

If you're a Growth Operator you're probably interested in setting up a number of Streams that push data into Slack for the whole team to see. We suggest thinking about this by grouping categories of events. For instance, you might have Streams in Variance (and Slack) for:

  • Trial Conversions: all events around trial conversions
  • User Management: all events around adding and removing users
  • NPS: all events related to NPS scores
  • Integrations: all events related to customer's adding integrations
  • Pricing: page visit events for pricing pages
  • Docs: page visit events for your Docs pages

These are just a few ideas and obviously will depend greatly on what kind of product you offer.

Team Streams

You may seem some Streams in your nav marked Team Streams, these are streams that have been built by an Admin and shared with everyone in the org. As a rule, these Streams are useful for everyone to look at and can also act as a good jumping off point for you to Duplicate a Stream.

If an Admin has set them up, you should see a list of shared Team Streams that you can dive into.

Duplicating a Stream

We allow you to duplicate any Stream you have access to (it could be yours, a teammates, or a Team Stream). To do that, just:

  1. Click the Stream options menu on the top right of the Stream
  2. Click Duplicate stream
  3. Give you Stream a new name

All the follows will copy over, but you will need to add a new Slack channel if you want it to flow there.

Duplicating a Stream is just a click away

Connecting a Stream to Slack

You can either connect a Stream to a Slack channel when you first create it or at any time by clicking the Send Events to Slack button.

Send events to Slack from any Stream

That will bring up the Stream settings, where you can search for any Slack channel (it has to exist already).

Connect any Stream to Slack

Adding an Icon to a Stream

Like Views, Streams can have an icon to make them easy to spot in your sidebar. You can either add an icon to a Stream while you're setting it up, or afterward by clicking the Stream icon at the top of the page. You'll see this interface pop up where you can choose a color + icon combination.

Digests

When you set up a Stream you'll be given a choice to include digests. Digests are simply rollups of activity over specific time windows. You can choose between hourly, twice a day, or daily Digests. You also have the choice to send only Digests to Slack instead of all events.

Digest Options

If you choose to include Digests, they will show up in your Stream like a regular event, except they include different information than you would typically see.

Digest event

The Digest event includes four bits of information:

  • Accounts: How many accounts were active in the period
  • Contacts: How many contacts were active in the period
  • Event types: How many unique event types happened in the period
  • Events: How many total events happened in the period

To dive deeper you simply click into the event where you can see all the detail around who those accounts and contacts are, what actions they took, and the volume. In addition we display the top Account, Contact, and Event Type in the overview.

Get at it Grape Soda
Last Updated: 
April 24, 2022