Playbooks Overview (BETA)

Article author
Sarah Malone
Updated

 
It Depends on Your Plan

Playbooks are only available on certain plans. For a breakdown of the features available in each Apollo plan, please refer to the pricing page. If you want to upgrade your plan to access playbooks, please reach out to the friendly Apollo sales team for further assistance.

Please note, this feature is also currently in beta development and may exhibit unexpected behavior. Take care to make sure your playbooks are operating the way you want them to!

Overview

Playbooks are engagement tools you use to group accounts through an ordered series of steps that must be completed during the engagement process. You can think of playbooks like sequences but for accounts instead of contacts. You can also have multiple playbooks operating simultaneously.

 
Playing With Playbooks vs. Stepping Through Sequences

If you want to engage clients at the contact level instead of the account level, refer to the Sequences Overview article.

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The Playbooks Page

Playbooks Page

The playbooks page contains all of your playbooks. From this page, you can also:

  • Add new playbooks to the page.
  • Turn playbooks on and off.
  • Star (favorite), archive, clone, or edit playbooks.
  • Move playbooks to folders to organize them.
  • Add or remove tags from playbooks for labeling purposes.
  • Search or filter playbooks to easily find the ones you want.
 
Unlock Your Potential!

For more information on how to get the most out of your playbooks, refer to the "Configure and Delete Playbooks" article.

Each playbook has four sub-pages: Overview, accounts, playbook tasks, and settings. You can perform several actions for each playbook. These include:

  • Star (favorite) your playbook.
  • Turn the playbook on and off.
  • Add accounts for the playbook.
  • Archive or clone the playbook.
  • View the playbook's settings.

Read the following sections for further information on the playbook sub-pages.

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Overview Page

Overview Page

The overview page displays the individual steps of your playbook at a glance. This can help you understand what actions are in your playbook.

This page also allows you to perform the following tasks for your playbook:

  • Add steps, including "Research Fields," "Add People," and "Do Action Item."
  • Edit, clone, rearrange, and remove steps.
  • View sequences tied to each playbook step.

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Accounts

Accounts Page

The accounts page shows you the accounts that you target in the playbook. You can filter your list with the sidebar to the left.

Apollo also organizes the records by status. Click each type to sort by these statuses. Please note that you can scroll to the right to see more statuses.

Records Statuses

The following tasks are available for you on this page:

  • Mark the playbook as finished.
  • Pause the playbook.
  • Resume the playbook.
  • Remove the account from the playbook.
  • Edit the playbook stage, owner, or custom field.

You can click the Additional Options (...) button for the playbook to expand the menu for more actions.

Additional Options

You can also perform the following actions for each account:

  • Call the contact listed on the account.
  • Go to the Salesforce record of the account.
  • Add or remove the account from a list.

To expand the menu for more actions, click the Additional Options (...) button for each account.

More Options

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Playbook Tasks

Tasks Page

The playbook tasks page lists all the accounts with tasks to complete. You can filter your list with the sidebar to the left.

You can also perform the following functions on multiple playbook tasks from this page:

  • Skip tasks.
  • Reschedule tasks.
  • Reassign tasks to another team member.
  • Set the task's priority level (high, medium, or low).

Click the right-hand side of an individual task to mark it as complete or skip it entirely.

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Settings

Settings Page

The settings page allows you to adjust various aspects of your playbook. This page is separated into two sections: Basic info and playbook rulesets.

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Basic Info

Basic Info

The basic info section allows you to perform the following tasks:

  • Rename your playbook.
  • Assign a team member to a playbook and grant them permissions.
  • Move the playbook to a folder.
  • Apply or remove tags.

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Playbook Rulesets

Playbook rulesets allow you to save the people settings and safeguards you choose. You can then use them for other playbooks.

 
What Are the Rules?

To learn more about creating and managing your Playbook Rulesets, refer to the "Create, Edit, and Delete a Playbook Ruleset" article.

You can adjust the people settings options to perform the following actions:

  • Automatically add prospects to playbooks or review them before you add them.
  • Have Apollo prompt you to skip tasks when there are no suggested contacts or leave the tasks active and add the contacts manually.
  • Select the field that determines from which user you send emails and assign tasks to (account owner or custom field).
  • Determine which linked email account Apollo should use to send emails when you add a contact to a sequence.

People Settings

The safeguards setting only has two options:

  • Do not suggest contacts in the following stages.
  • Mark account as finished in the playbook if the account stage changes.

Safeguards Settings

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Available Steps in a Playbook

 
We Go Deep

This section gives basic descriptions of the steps in a Playbook. For more in-depth information on how to create a Playbook, refer to the Create, Edit, and Delete a Playbook Ruleset article.

You can perform the following steps in a playbook:

  • Add people.
  • Research fields.
  • Do action item.

Refer to the sections below for more information on each step.

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Add People

 
People Come First!

You should start your playbooks with the "Add People" step, as it provides a more natural flow and will allow you to target your tasks to the correct contacts for your accounts.

This step allows you to add contacts to your sequences, which will be used in your playbooks. You can filter characteristics for your contacts and choose to add from:

  • Net New contacts.
  • Saved contacts.
  • Both net new and current contacts.

    Add People

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Research Fields

This step allows you to fill in the data for any accounts added to your playbook. This is helpful for account-based custom fields.

Research Fields

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Do Action Item

This step creates a task that reminds you to complete actions that may be relevant when doing account-based sales. This is good for personalizing your interactions.

Action Item

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