2023 Release Recap: What's New for Distro in 2023

Ally DeForest
February 5, 2024
min to read

2023 was a big year. Lots of updates and releases. Especially to our newest product, Distro — a CRM lead routing tool that helps you live the "speed to lead" dream whenever a meeting isn't being scheduled.

2023 Release Recap: What's New for Distro in 2023

Ally DeForest
February 5, 2024
min to read

2023 was a big year. Lots of updates and releases. Especially to our newest product, Distro — a CRM lead routing tool that helps you live the "speed to lead" dream whenever a meeting isn't being scheduled.

We have customers using Distro to distribute leads from events, ping SDRs as soon as an account reaches a lead score threshold — and even route and assign leads to CSMs once an opportunity is Closed Won

It's pretty rad.

And it's getting more and more rad ever day.

Throughout 2023, we've been putting out new updates to make Distro better and better — and 2024 is going to be more of the same.

Let's dive in.

Notable Highlights

Before I get into the nitty gritties, I want to call out some of the heavy hitting updates we made last year. We made a lot of updates, but here are the main ones to call home about: 

A UI on Fire 🔥

Not on fire, like everything burning. On Fire like our new Fire UI! 

Now, you can…

  1. Build your routers even more intuitively. We’re talking triggers, assignment rulesets, SLAs, and more, all in the same screen:
  • Drag and drop routes
  • Reuse teams, assignment rulesets, triggers, and other assets across your various routers — which means when you make updates, you only have to do it in one place

Calibration

Someone get assigned a spam lead? No biggie. Recalibrating their lead count is quick and easy! Find it under Distribution > Fairness.

Test Your Flows Before Pushing Live 

OK this one technically went live early 2024, but we’re still counting it here. Because it’s so legit. 

With “Preview Mode” you can make sure the routing logic you set up will actually work — using real Salesforce data, without updating any of your records.

SLAs that sync with your reps’ calendars

Distro is the only CRM routing solution that syncs with your reps’ calendars — which is especially awesome when it comes to SLAs. 

Last year, we added functionality to let you choose “working hours” as part of SLAs, so you only route leads to your reps during their working hours (which Distro pulls from their calendars). 

January

  • SLA Algorithms
  • Reordering Users in Teams or remove in bulk
  • Distribution settings

Vacation adjustment, Vacation Buffer, Distribution Cycle

  • Drag and drop conditions in rules
  • Show Router errors before publishing
  • SLA UI and logic to CRM Router
  • Distribution settings : new time period Quarterly added
  • Prevent deletion of assets in use

If Rules/Teams/Assignment Rulesets are actively in use they cannot be deleted or If CRM Router is marked as active it cannot be deleted until deactivated

February

  • Logs details page

Return what part of the condition matched in log details AND mark what part of the condition and formula matched for the matched rules in the record details

  • Implementation of a new SLA design
  • Display more values in Rules
  • Catch all state in Assignment Rulesets is not able to be dragged and dropped like other routes

A catch all should only be last, and this prevents it being moved into an incorrect place causing an error

March

  • Date picker in Rules
  • The Distribution Reporting list page
  • Notification for removing licenses

Ensuring licenses are not removed by accident

  • Logs Updates: timeframe shown in chronological order
  • New Distribution Reporting page

April

  • Logs filter for Distribution Method
  • If the distribution type is Ownership based - disable reassign SLA action
  • Updated Slack messages

[RecordName] - [Distribution Method: Ownership/Round Robin] - has just been assigned to you: [Salesforce URL]  

  • Add Rule Preview tab on the distribution details page
  • Display 'is in team' operator when selecting text fields

When creating a condition, the 'is in team operator' should also be visible when a text field is selected. This means you can use text fields to search for team members, so if you have a custom text field that has a team member in it that can be used

May

  • Migration to Distro Fire begins 🔥
  • Support for relative date conditions in rules
  • Support of ‘is in team’ operator with text fields of ownership rules

In some cases, text fields may reference an email or Id calculated by a formula so we have added these into the possible field types that are compatible with the ‘is in team’ operator of ownership rules. There is no required selection of whether the condition should evaluate email/Id/name specifically, as we will check all of these automatically

  • Copy to Routes & SLA
  • Create Assignment Rulesets w/ catch-all rule only
  • Usage tab for Assignment Rulesets shows all the routers (published and draft) that this Assignment Ruleset is currently used in
  • Usage Tab Additional Features

When a ‘breaking’ change has been made to an Assignment Ruleset used in a router (such as adding a new route), the Usage tab will have a link to ‘Update’ the router:

  • The router will open in a new tab and there will be a button to ‘Update AR’ as shown below
  • Upon refreshing the Assignment Ruleset, we will explain the changes made to the new version
  • Once the changes have been made (adding the route actions), the router shown in the usage tab will no longer say ‘Update’ and instead have a link to just ‘View’
  • Working hours and SLA functionality 

When a router is using SLA, check the assignee’s working hours to know when to perform reassign record

June

  • Fire Logs Page

Fire Logs have been rebuilt with additional improvements and data shared for SLA events, error messages, and data for mismatched cases

  • Update multiple fields with the same Assignee within a Route

Previously a route would only support a single ownership field update. You can now add multiple! Note that as of right now, if >1 of these Update Ownership actions exist in a Route that "Copy to Routes" is disabled

  • Distro Fire Logs - debug view

Improved debug view that aligns with the visual rule builder and a clearer indication of which Route matched (unmatched routes will be collapsed by default)

  • Log work to Implement "empty" state on the log record page

When the Logs page is opened in a new workspace that has no records routed through it yet, we display the table header without any data. Our primary pattern for pages where data or assets that "do not exist" yet is a splash page with some informational context that guides the admin to create something or explains why nothing is there. This update to the Logs page will inform them to activate a router in order to see data.

  • More descriptive log statuses

July

  • UI updates to make Distro language consist in Fire
  • Logs > Distribution method and team

In Logs, there is a new data column for the distribution method type: Round Robin, Ownership and a filter for this column:

  • Added filter "assigned to" on the Logs records page 

Search through logs by how the record was assigned. If an admin wants to know how many records a certain rep got or a view based on rep this filter is super helpful.

  • Logs Page gives feedback to the admin when is not possible to load the log/rule data
  • In-context Rule and Team editing with the ability to edit/create/remove teams from team picker in Assignment Rulesets

August

  • Lead to Account Matching Page with Tiebreakers!

September

  • Distro can now support a SECOND use case independent of ownership updates: Updating custom fields!

Admins can set this action directly in the route. This could be used to update an additional custom field such as lead status or router name. It is a very useful additional reporting tool!

  • Logs default option on Distribution Method filter 

Have a 3rd option that says ‘No distribution' which only shows those that have not been distributed. If NO option is selected in the filter (clear all selections), then no data will show.

  • Rule, Team, Assignment Ruleset, Router - the name is required

Replace "Untitled" with insert, an error will show the name is missing if published

  • Rule Builder: Field sort order

Now sorting fields now in Alphabetical Order

  • Improve search and selecting fields in rules

Automatically start in the search bar, If only one result is shown allow user to use ‘Enter’ button to select the value, If more than one result is shown - allow tab to go down the list to select a value, if something is selected menu should close

  • Full migration to Distro Fire complete. All Chili Piper Distro Customers are officially routing on Fire 🔥

October

  • CRM Actions: Update Ownership Restricted Fields

Important update to reduce admin errors. Previously when you wanted to use the feature: “Update Ownership”, you got access to all fields on the object. Meaning you can make some invalid operations or choices. These invalid operations are now removed!

  • CRM Actions: Update multiple fields on the same object

In the router, you can have multiple updates on the same object type

  • Notification of field removal

If a field has been deleted in Salesforce, and that field has been used in 1 or multiple routers Distro detects that a field has been deleted in Salesforce and that field is used in Rules X and Router Y and then sends an email notification to the admin

November

  • New Flow Builder View - The distro router is now being visually represented in a brand new way! Includes all you know and love with Distro and more with a new top-down approach to building a router
  • Focus Mode - when you click on a node and moves along with your clicks
  • Validation - if you add a new node and don't add required items you will see errors
  • Calibration - You can catch up or hold down users with calibration, see the position, record routed, and adjust the weight. It will also not let you leave unless you publish! You can find this Distribution algorithm > fairness

  • Working/Instant Clock in SLA - In the SLA you can select from working hours or instant hours. Working hours will only route during working hours of the assignee and instant will route instantly

December

  • Distro Calibration - When assigning to a team in distro from distribution > fairness you reach calibration

#1: Current level: Who is next for a route - A lower number is a higher priority

#2: Records: The number of records the user has been routed

#3: Credit / Skip: Calibration feature used to make manual adjustments to the current level and who will receive a meeting

#4: Weight: Assignment of what % of meetings the user should get within the team

  • Notifications to admins on Errors

When a field is removed in Salesforce admins will be notified. This is important information to be alerted on especially if that field is being used in your router, preventing unknown errors.

  • Updated error messaging to SalesForce admin when we are not able to find the User in Salesforce to make the update
  • Multiple Ownerships Updates on the same node

Anytime you have a path with the assignment you can allow for multiple updates. For example, you can update the contact owner with the team member assigned and update the account owner.

We have customers using Distro to distribute leads from events, ping SDRs as soon as an account reaches a lead score threshold — and even route and assign leads to CSMs once an opportunity is Closed Won

It's pretty rad.

And it's getting more and more rad ever day.

Throughout 2023, we've been putting out new updates to make Distro better and better — and 2024 is going to be more of the same.

Let's dive in.

Notable Highlights

Before I get into the nitty gritties, I want to call out some of the heavy hitting updates we made last year. We made a lot of updates, but here are the main ones to call home about: 

A UI on Fire 🔥

Not on fire, like everything burning. On Fire like our new Fire UI! 

Now, you can…

  1. Build your routers even more intuitively. We’re talking triggers, assignment rulesets, SLAs, and more, all in the same screen:
  • Drag and drop routes
  • Reuse teams, assignment rulesets, triggers, and other assets across your various routers — which means when you make updates, you only have to do it in one place

Calibration

Someone get assigned a spam lead? No biggie. Recalibrating their lead count is quick and easy! Find it under Distribution > Fairness.

Test Your Flows Before Pushing Live 

OK this one technically went live early 2024, but we’re still counting it here. Because it’s so legit. 

With “Preview Mode” you can make sure the routing logic you set up will actually work — using real Salesforce data, without updating any of your records.

SLAs that sync with your reps’ calendars

Distro is the only CRM routing solution that syncs with your reps’ calendars — which is especially awesome when it comes to SLAs. 

Last year, we added functionality to let you choose “working hours” as part of SLAs, so you only route leads to your reps during their working hours (which Distro pulls from their calendars). 

January

  • SLA Algorithms
  • Reordering Users in Teams or remove in bulk
  • Distribution settings

Vacation adjustment, Vacation Buffer, Distribution Cycle

  • Drag and drop conditions in rules
  • Show Router errors before publishing
  • SLA UI and logic to CRM Router
  • Distribution settings : new time period Quarterly added
  • Prevent deletion of assets in use

If Rules/Teams/Assignment Rulesets are actively in use they cannot be deleted or If CRM Router is marked as active it cannot be deleted until deactivated

February

  • Logs details page

Return what part of the condition matched in log details AND mark what part of the condition and formula matched for the matched rules in the record details

  • Implementation of a new SLA design
  • Display more values in Rules
  • Catch all state in Assignment Rulesets is not able to be dragged and dropped like other routes

A catch all should only be last, and this prevents it being moved into an incorrect place causing an error

March

  • Date picker in Rules
  • The Distribution Reporting list page
  • Notification for removing licenses

Ensuring licenses are not removed by accident

  • Logs Updates: timeframe shown in chronological order
  • New Distribution Reporting page

April

  • Logs filter for Distribution Method
  • If the distribution type is Ownership based - disable reassign SLA action
  • Updated Slack messages

[RecordName] - [Distribution Method: Ownership/Round Robin] - has just been assigned to you: [Salesforce URL]  

  • Add Rule Preview tab on the distribution details page
  • Display 'is in team' operator when selecting text fields

When creating a condition, the 'is in team operator' should also be visible when a text field is selected. This means you can use text fields to search for team members, so if you have a custom text field that has a team member in it that can be used

May

  • Migration to Distro Fire begins 🔥
  • Support for relative date conditions in rules
  • Support of ‘is in team’ operator with text fields of ownership rules

In some cases, text fields may reference an email or Id calculated by a formula so we have added these into the possible field types that are compatible with the ‘is in team’ operator of ownership rules. There is no required selection of whether the condition should evaluate email/Id/name specifically, as we will check all of these automatically

  • Copy to Routes & SLA
  • Create Assignment Rulesets w/ catch-all rule only
  • Usage tab for Assignment Rulesets shows all the routers (published and draft) that this Assignment Ruleset is currently used in
  • Usage Tab Additional Features

When a ‘breaking’ change has been made to an Assignment Ruleset used in a router (such as adding a new route), the Usage tab will have a link to ‘Update’ the router:

  • The router will open in a new tab and there will be a button to ‘Update AR’ as shown below
  • Upon refreshing the Assignment Ruleset, we will explain the changes made to the new version
  • Once the changes have been made (adding the route actions), the router shown in the usage tab will no longer say ‘Update’ and instead have a link to just ‘View’
  • Working hours and SLA functionality 

When a router is using SLA, check the assignee’s working hours to know when to perform reassign record

June

  • Fire Logs Page

Fire Logs have been rebuilt with additional improvements and data shared for SLA events, error messages, and data for mismatched cases

  • Update multiple fields with the same Assignee within a Route

Previously a route would only support a single ownership field update. You can now add multiple! Note that as of right now, if >1 of these Update Ownership actions exist in a Route that "Copy to Routes" is disabled

  • Distro Fire Logs - debug view

Improved debug view that aligns with the visual rule builder and a clearer indication of which Route matched (unmatched routes will be collapsed by default)

  • Log work to Implement "empty" state on the log record page

When the Logs page is opened in a new workspace that has no records routed through it yet, we display the table header without any data. Our primary pattern for pages where data or assets that "do not exist" yet is a splash page with some informational context that guides the admin to create something or explains why nothing is there. This update to the Logs page will inform them to activate a router in order to see data.

  • More descriptive log statuses

July

  • UI updates to make Distro language consist in Fire
  • Logs > Distribution method and team

In Logs, there is a new data column for the distribution method type: Round Robin, Ownership and a filter for this column:

  • Added filter "assigned to" on the Logs records page 

Search through logs by how the record was assigned. If an admin wants to know how many records a certain rep got or a view based on rep this filter is super helpful.

  • Logs Page gives feedback to the admin when is not possible to load the log/rule data
  • In-context Rule and Team editing with the ability to edit/create/remove teams from team picker in Assignment Rulesets

August

  • Lead to Account Matching Page with Tiebreakers!

September

  • Distro can now support a SECOND use case independent of ownership updates: Updating custom fields!

Admins can set this action directly in the route. This could be used to update an additional custom field such as lead status or router name. It is a very useful additional reporting tool!

  • Logs default option on Distribution Method filter 

Have a 3rd option that says ‘No distribution' which only shows those that have not been distributed. If NO option is selected in the filter (clear all selections), then no data will show.

  • Rule, Team, Assignment Ruleset, Router - the name is required

Replace "Untitled" with insert, an error will show the name is missing if published

  • Rule Builder: Field sort order

Now sorting fields now in Alphabetical Order

  • Improve search and selecting fields in rules

Automatically start in the search bar, If only one result is shown allow user to use ‘Enter’ button to select the value, If more than one result is shown - allow tab to go down the list to select a value, if something is selected menu should close

  • Full migration to Distro Fire complete. All Chili Piper Distro Customers are officially routing on Fire 🔥

October

  • CRM Actions: Update Ownership Restricted Fields

Important update to reduce admin errors. Previously when you wanted to use the feature: “Update Ownership”, you got access to all fields on the object. Meaning you can make some invalid operations or choices. These invalid operations are now removed!

  • CRM Actions: Update multiple fields on the same object

In the router, you can have multiple updates on the same object type

  • Notification of field removal

If a field has been deleted in Salesforce, and that field has been used in 1 or multiple routers Distro detects that a field has been deleted in Salesforce and that field is used in Rules X and Router Y and then sends an email notification to the admin

November

  • New Flow Builder View - The distro router is now being visually represented in a brand new way! Includes all you know and love with Distro and more with a new top-down approach to building a router
  • Focus Mode - when you click on a node and moves along with your clicks
  • Validation - if you add a new node and don't add required items you will see errors
  • Calibration - You can catch up or hold down users with calibration, see the position, record routed, and adjust the weight. It will also not let you leave unless you publish! You can find this Distribution algorithm > fairness

  • Working/Instant Clock in SLA - In the SLA you can select from working hours or instant hours. Working hours will only route during working hours of the assignee and instant will route instantly

December

  • Distro Calibration - When assigning to a team in distro from distribution > fairness you reach calibration

#1: Current level: Who is next for a route - A lower number is a higher priority

#2: Records: The number of records the user has been routed

#3: Credit / Skip: Calibration feature used to make manual adjustments to the current level and who will receive a meeting

#4: Weight: Assignment of what % of meetings the user should get within the team

  • Notifications to admins on Errors

When a field is removed in Salesforce admins will be notified. This is important information to be alerted on especially if that field is being used in your router, preventing unknown errors.

  • Updated error messaging to SalesForce admin when we are not able to find the User in Salesforce to make the update
  • Multiple Ownerships Updates on the same node

Anytime you have a path with the assignment you can allow for multiple updates. For example, you can update the contact owner with the team member assigned and update the account owner.

Ally DeForest

Ally serves as the Product Operations Manager at Chili Piper, where she leads the technological and procedural optimization of the product team. She is responsible for streamlining processes, facilitating product updates and launches, and ensuring seamless communication and training for both internal and external stakeholders.

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