For CRM administrators. Menu: CRM › CRM administration, Pipelines tab (address: /crm/admin/pipelines) and Competitors tab (/crm/admin/competitors).
Pipelines
A pipeline describes the stages of a type of sale (project sales, services, partners…). The "Standard sales" pipeline is delivered with six stages: qualification, needs analysis, proposal, negotiation, won, lost.
- New pipeline: a code (lowercase, digits, underscores) and a name per language. It is created with three stages: "In progress", "Won" and "Lost", which you rename and complete.
- Settings:
- names and descriptions per language, display order;
- default pipeline: suggested when creating an opportunity (only one, always active);
- reason required for a loss, for a win;
- winning competitor required for a loss.
- A pipeline that has opportunities cannot be deleted: deactivate it.
Stages
Each pipeline has its open stages, a won stage and a lost stage. For each stage:
- names per language;
- default probability (0 to 99% for an open stage; 100% for won, 0% for lost);
- forecast category: pipeline, best case, commit or omitted. It places the deal in the forecasts;
- maximum duration in days: beyond it, the opportunity is flagged as stalled and its owner is notified;
- fields required to enter the stage: amount, expected close date, next step and its date, source, campaign, description, a contact with a role, a competitor listed, the revenue split, or one of your custom fields;
- guidance per language, shown to the sales rep while the deal is in the stage;
- active or not.
Drag the open stages by their handle to change their order, then click Save the order. A stage type cannot change; a stage that holds opportunities (or that opportunities left) cannot be deleted.
Loss and win reasons
The reasons offered when closing are managed in Picklists ("Loss reasons" and "Win reasons" categories).
Competitors
The competitor list is used to list them on opportunities, to name the winning competitor when a deal is lost, and in the win/loss analysis. For each one: name, website, strengths and weaknesses. A competitor already listed is deactivated; it cannot be deleted.
What the sales rep sees
Sales reps don't open these screens: they find these settings on their opportunities (see Managing opportunities).
- Stage guidance: on an open opportunity, the stage's Guidance shows under the stage path. It changes with the stage.
- Required fields: under the path, "This stage requires:" lists the fields of the current stage. To enter a stage, the opportunity must have them: when it is created, dragged to another column of the kanban, moved from the path, moved to another pipeline in the form (checked against the first stage of the new pipeline), reopened or closed. Otherwise the move is refused and the missing fields are shown. The edit form also refuses to empty a field required by the current stage.
- Probability and forecast category: at each stage change, the opportunity takes the default probability and the forecast category of the new stage. The sales rep can adjust them on the opportunity; the adjustment holds until the next stage change. The category places the deal in the forecasts (commit, best case or pipeline); "Omitted" leaves it out.
- Maximum duration: beyond it, an hourglass flags the deal and the stalled only filter finds it. The owner is notified once per stay in the stage.
- Closing: the closing window requires the reason, and for a loss the winning competitor, if the pipeline asks for them.
- Competitors: the Competitors involved card of the opportunity offers the active competitors of the list, with a free note for each. A deactivated competitor is no longer offered. The strengths and weaknesses entered in the competitor list show under each competitor listed, as a cheat sheet for sales reps; the competitors API also returns them to any CRM user: don't put confidential information there.