Disclaimer:

The following is an outline of LinkedIn’s general product direction and possible future developments which may be changed by LinkedIn at any time, for any reason, without notice. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for LinkedIn’s products remains at the sole discretion of LinkedIn. LinkedIn makes no warranties, express or implied, in this document. The information in this document is confidential and proprietary to LinkedIn and may not be disclosed without the permission of LinkedIn.
 


Executive Summary

This Statement of Direction for LinkedIn Sales Navigator is intended to provide guidance on recent releases and the future direction of the product, and thereby enable you—our valued customers—to plan training, manage user adoption, and identify interdependencies with technologies or processes already deployed alongside LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Recent Updates

  • New Homepage: Find your next best actions with Alerts front and center. Sales Navigator Coach has been moved from the profile dropdown to a more prominent spot on the homepage, and now includes a visual meter so users can track their level of expertise. We will continue to ramp to all users through early September. All Admins currently have access to the new homepage, with the ability for users to toggle the experience on and off in your Settings. You can visit this page to learn more about the new homepage experience.
  • Live Chat: Bringing immediate access to Help in Sales Navigator with the “Chat with Us” button throughout the site. The Sales Navigator support team works directly with users to get their questions answered, minimizing distraction for administrators and maximizing sales productivity. This is currently available in English language only.
  • InMail & Connection Workflow Enhancements: To improve the efficiency and ease of use of InMail, we added Icebreakers and InMail credit details on each message; updated the Connection flow to keep the conversation within the Sales Navigator Inbox; and also updated Inbox message filters, made conversation history available across InMail access points, and introduced quick links between Sales Navigator and LinkedIn.com Inboxes.
  • Keyword Search Recommendations: Improved the design and speed of the keyword search typeahead so users can see relevant suggestions to more quickly complete or refine their search.
  • Lists Enhancements: Users can bulk save leads and accounts to Lists, and manually match leads to accounts. No more saving leads and accounts one by one!
  • CRM Enhancements:
    • Live org chart integration: Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales users can now have LinkedIn member profile photos automatically displayed on contacts on visual organization hierarchies within Unified Interface. Users can ensure their org charts are up-to-date by viewing current LinkedIn information with Sales Navigator Embedded Profiles directly from the org chart.
    • Streamlined setup experience: CRM admins managing Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales instances with Unified Interface enabled can install and manage one Sales Navigator app, instead of the two separate apps previously required.
  • Sales Navigator Application Platform (SNAP) partners: Lucidchart joined the program, and InsideSales.com released an update with enhanced functionality.
  • Global Community accessibility: The Community is now available in all supported languages, including groups to connect and support administrators wishing to communicate in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, in addition to English.

What’s Coming: Q3 Release

  • LinkedIn Elevate Alerts in Sales Navigator: LinkedIn Elevate provides companies with the ability to promote approved content for employees to share with their professional networks, raising brand awareness and positioning employees as credible experts in their industry. Users will receive an Alert in Sales Navigator when Marketing posts content to Elevate for employees to share. They can then publish that content to their own professional networks from within Sales Navigator. This feature will only be available to Sales Navigator Enterprise Edition customers with an Elevate contract. Learn more here, and speak to your LinkedIn representative if you’re interested in Elevate for your business. 

  • Improvements to finding and saving:
    • Connect and Save: Adding the option to save a person as a lead when you send them a connection request from Sales Navigator.
    • Search Limit Increase: Increasing Lead and Account search results from 1,000 to 2500 profiles or accounts.
    • Lists Sorting: Making it easier for users to find who they are looking for by letting you sort Leads on name, geography, or account and Accounts on name or geography.
  • List Sharing Enhancements: We’re making shared lists even more collaborative by allowing users that receive a list to save it as their own and edit however they wish, or simply bulk save all leads from the shared list. This will enable sales teams to work together more closely on overlapping leads and accounts, as well as seamlessly transition accounts to new people and teams.
  • Active Status: Allows users to see who is currently online on LinkedIn.com, signaling that right now is a great time to reach out for a live conversation.
  • Help Center Redesign: Users can easily access Help via new shortcuts, including recommended topics, contact us, and a “sticky” search bar that scrolls with users as they navigate the Help Center. Content within the Help Center will include visible Table of Contents and be organized by tags, and users will see suggested “recommended and related articles” relevant to their search. 
  • Sales Navigator Application Platform (SNAP) partners: Tact.ai is a conversational AI platform joining the program. The integration will allow users to immediately access Sales Navigator lead and account information within the Tact.ai app.
  • Usage Reporting Fix: We found a discrepancy in how the aggregated count of Unique Connections across all Sales Navigator seat holders is calculated within Usage Reporting. The connections of TeamLink Extend members who had not yet accepted the TeamLink Extend request or Sales Navigator seat holders who had opted out of TeamLink were included in the aggregated Unique Connections count within Usage Reporting. We are planning to remove this discrepancy in the coming months. After the fix, impacted accounts would see a dip in the aggregated count of all Unique Connections within Usage Reporting. For more details on how Unique Connections is calculated, please refer to this Help Center article.


Our Recommendations to Customers

Program Leaders should:

Review the list of Q3 Release updates, and work with your account representative to determine how these will impact your team’s sales processes using Sales Navigator.

Sales Navigator Administrators should:

  • Take advantage of early access provided around August 19 to familiarize themselves with the changes. (Please note that for testing purposes, a small subset of your users may start getting the new features ahead of that date).
    • Note that as the new homepage ramp continues, this experience can be toggled on and off until early September.
  • Join the Community AMA sessions to get your questions answered with Product Leadership on July 31 and August 22.
  • Remind users to review the product update details shared at the announcement around September 9.
  • Encourage users to attend webinars and engage in training opportunities offered by your organization and/or LinkedIn.

Launch announcements will be sent to you directly, as well as to your team’s Sales Navigator users, providing updated details on the changes included in the Q3 Release.

Conclusion

Thank you for your continued support of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. If you have any questions about this Statement of Direction, please contact your account representative.