CRM > Deals / Deal pipeline

Deal pipeline

A pipeline is a tool for tracking the flow of deals from the initial contact until they are closed. You can always be aware of the number of deals at each stage, know who is responsible for them, and see tasks associated with them.

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The columns correspond with the deal’s status at each stage of the sales process. When a deal’s status changes, it moves from one stage to another. Read more about it in Manage status. Close a deal.

A standard pipeline describes a simple, common sales process. Though the standard pipeline stages might work for most companies, you can freely edit their names, delete them, and add new ones. This allows you to make custom pipelines that accurately represent your company’s business model.

начало внимание

Only the users included in the Administrators group can configure, add, and delete pipelines.

конец внимание

Add a new pipeline

You can set up multiple pipelines in the Deals app. To do this, click on the + icon to the right of the last pipeline. Specify the new pipeline’s name and configure its stages.

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If you’ve set up multiple pipelines, you can also change their order.

To do this, click on the pencil icon opposite the Unallocated page name and drag them to the right places.

Set up stages

Go to a pipeline’s page. Make sure the Kanban board view is selected and click on the gear blue icon in the upper right corner. Select Pipeline Settings.

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On the page that opens, you can edit the name of the stages (statuses), rearrange them, delete them, or add new ones.

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Configure actions in a pipeline

Click on the plus button button under a column’s name to select an action that will be automatically performed when the deal’s status changes.

Available actions:

  • Start a business process. This option allows you to select a business process that will start when a deal moves to this stage. For example, the contract approval process can start automatically when a deal moves from the In Progress stage to Negotiations.
  • Email. This option allows you to automatically notify customers that their order is completed or forward a contract approved within a business process.
    This action is configured in the same way as the Email Notification activity. Read more about its configuration in the Email Notification article.

If an error occurs while sending the notification, for example, if the recipient’s email address cannot be determined, the employee who changed the deal’s status will receive the corresponding notification.

  • Webhook. This option allows you to automatically transfer data to an external system.
    This action is configured in the same way as the Webhook activity. Read more in the Webhook article.

If the external system returns an error in response to the request, the employee who changed the deal’s status will receive the corresponding notification.

  • SMS. This activity is used to notify customers and employees about any events via SMS. For example, you can configure an automatic notification about passing an order to the shipping company.

This action is configured in the same way as the Send Message activity. Read more about this in the Send Message article.

If an error occurs while sending the message, for example, if the external provider cannot be accessed, the employee who changed the lead’s status will receive the corresponding notification.

  • Change values. This option allows you to automatically change the value of any field on the deal’s page when it moves to a different stage in the pipeline. Suppose a deal has the Contract signed by client property. It can have two values: Yes and No. By using the Change values action, you can automatically set the desired value for the attribute when the deal moves to another stage, for example, from the signing stage to implementation.

To configure this action, in the left column, select the field whose value you want to change. In the right column, specify the new value.

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You can add several actions to one stage. In that case, the system will perform them in the order they were added.

At the bottom of the page, you can specify how deals will move from one stage to another:

  • Sales reps are allowed to change deal statuses. This option allows employees to manually move deals from one stage to another.  To change a deal’s status manually, go to the pipeline and open the deal’s page. On the sidebar, select a new status from the list. Additionally, you can prevent users from moving deals back to previous stages.
  • Deals move from one stage to another automatically, according to the business process logic. A deal will automatically move from one stage of the pipeline to another within a business process. You can select an existing process or add a new one. Note that this option will only work correctly if you add activities that manage item statuses to the process and select the current pipeline’s statuses in it.

Is you scroll the horizontal slider all the way to the right, you will see the final statuses of the pipeline: Won and Lost. For the Lost stage, you can configure possible reasons for rejection. To create a new reason, click +Add reason. To delete a reason, click the recycle bin icon next to its name.

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By default, deals with final statuses are hidden from the pipeline page. To show them, click the eye-closed icon next to the final stage’s name.

Delete a pipeline

To delete a pipeline, click on the pencil_icon icon opposite the Unallocated page’s name. The recycle bin icon will appear next to each pipeline’s name. Click it to confirm the deletion.

начало внимание

If a pipeline contains deals, it cannot be deleted.

конец внимание

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If a pipeline contains deals, you need to move all its deals to another pipeline before deleting it. To do this, open a deal’s page. In the sidebar, in the Status section, click Change. Under the list of statuses, you can see the Select pipeline link. Click it to specify the new pipeline and status.

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Moreover, you can move deals to another pipeline in bulk. Read more about it in Move a deal to another pipeline.

When there are no deals left in the pipeline, you can delete it.

 

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