Ramping in Atrium - Visualizations, Alerting, Goals, Duration, and More

Ramping - the period in which a given rep is ramping up their performance at the beginning of starting a new role - is a vital period as relates to performance management. 

As such, Atrium has special functionality that helps measure and manage the performance ramps of reps.

This support document seeks to document all the ways in which the Atrium product specially treats ramping. 

Ramping Overview

In most sales roles, a given rep's performance, and leading and lagging indicators associated with that performance, has a tendency to ramp up over time. Typically this is the result of time spent training (onboarding bootcamps, etc.) but also due to the nature of incrementally adding more "work to be done" to their plate (e.g., adding opportunities, pipeline) over time. 

Because of this, when measuring the indicators of performance, whether leading or lagging indicators, special consideration needs to be paid to ramping periods, both for a rep, but also for the team that they're on, and so on. 

Atrium has a number of ways in which it treats ramping in a special way.

Visualization of Ramping

At the most basic level, Atrium has a "Ramping View" option for the "Timeframe" on the Detailed Card View that allows a user to see the ramping performance of reps. This is achieved by taking the start date for the rep (in their current role) and putting it at the "origin" of the chart, with the time intervals on the X-axis correlating to the elapsed time periods (e.g., Month, Weeks, etc.) since the start for all the reps in question. This allows for an "apples to apples" comparison. 

Number of opportunities owned by each of these reps in their first 12 months in seat, per month.

 

Number of meetings for these reps in their first 6 months in seat, totaled.

Alerting in Ramp

Atrium's Alerting system, which uses statistics to flag metrics that are moving in ways that warrant further attention, and potential intervention, has special ways it works in ramp. You can read more about the Alerting system here. 

Peer Alerts in Ramp

Atrium has an alert type called a "Peer Alert" (learn more) that compares the performance of a given rep for a given metric to others reps of the same Segment and Discipline (more on Atrium Roles here). 

Atrium also tracks the performance of reps in ramp by comparing their metric levels to reps in the same role (i.e. same discipline and segment) at the same time. 

This allows managers to track the leading indicators of success during ramp - when lagging indicators (bookings for AEs, meeting creation for SDRs) have not yet showed up. 

Goal Alerts in Ramp

Atrium's Goal Alerting (read more) also takes into consideration ramping, in two ways. 

Pro-Rated Goals in Ramp: If you have your ramping goal settings set to "pro-rated" (more on ramping goal settings here and configure them here), then the Atrium's Goal Alerting will alert on progress to and completion of those goals in their pro-rated values during that metric's ramp period.

The pro-ration is linear over the ramping time period for the metric in question - e.g., if the ramping time for "Opps Owned" for a mid-market inside-sales rep is 4 months, and the "end state" goal set is 40 Opps Owned - then the goal would pro-rate to 10 Opps Owned at the end of month 1, 20 Opps Owned at the end of month 2, 30 Opps Owned at the end of month 3, and 40 Opps at the end of month 4).

You can further configure Per-Metric ramp duration for various Atrium roles using Ramping Rules - configurable here. 

Custom Ramp Goals: There's a different way Goals can be treated in ramp - custom ramp goals. Again this can be configured here and is for organizations that would like to set ramping goals manually, rather than relying on Atrium to pro-rate a goal over its ramp duration.

This can be configured based on ramp goal settings. 

Self / Trend Alerts in Ramp

Trend alerts (read more) for individual reps (which monitor performance of an individual as compare themselves, historically) don't fire during the ramping period. 

Ramping Durations

Each metric in Atrium for each role type (a discipline plus a segment) has what's known as a "Ramp Duration". That is, this is the period in which this metric (e.g Meetings, Opportunities Owned, Calls) is in a probationary period ahead of expected "full productivity."

These Ramping Durations are set by default (more on default ramp periods) for Atrium's default role types (e.g. "Inside Sales Rep"). 

That said, they can also be edited via Atrium's Ramping Rules for either existing default roles or newly created custom roles. 

Ramping Inclusions & Exclusions

Because of the fact that a given metric in ramp is typically "out of step" with fully ramped performance expectations, they are treated specially as relates to inclusion or exclusion in other Atrium capabilities.

Team Averages: Ramping reps are not included in the Team Average concept in Atrium's "People Picker" for a card visualization. (Learn more)

Team Totals: Ramping reps are indeed included in the Team Total concept for a given card visualization. 

Rep Peer Alerts: Ramping Reps are not included in calculating the average line for Rep Peer Alerts (they would erroneously pull down the average). 

No ramping reps included above.

Team Peer Alerts: Ramping rep metrics are not included in Team Averages that are used to calculate Team Peer Alerts. 

No ramping reps included above.

Team Trend Alerts: Team trend alerts do not include ramping reps for the metric in question, as newly added reps would erroneously pull down the average.

No ramping reps included above.

Team Average Goal Alerts: Team Goal Alerts do not include reps who are in ramp for the metric the goal is set on, as those reps would generally pull down that average.

 

No ramping reps included above.

 

What are the default ramping durations?

You can find the default ramping periods explained here.

 

How to change the default ramping durations?

Atrium will default to ramping time periods that are most common for each discipline and segment in your organization (see examples here!)), but you can customize these default ramping time periods here.

 

How to change the ramping rules for goals

You have further customization ability with how to handle ramping reps with goals, which can be customized here.

If you let Atrium automatically pro-rate goals for ramping employees, you can enter what you would consider a fully-ramped goal, and let Atrium calculate needed attainment based on length of ramp. 

If you select “Set Your Own Goal Values,” you can enter whatever goals you would like and Atrium will not automatically adjust them.  By selecting this option, you will be able to track rep goal attainment normally.

If you select “No” on including ramping employees in individual goal metrics, Atrium will turn off tracking individual goals for reps it considers to be in ramp.  Even if goals are entered for these individuals, Atrium will show “N/A” and “Ramping.