Opportunities and pipelines

An opportunity is a deal: what an account may buy, how likely it is, and when. The Opportunities module tracks each deal from first contact to won or lost through the stages of a pipeline, and shows your pipeline on a board and in a forecast. When a deal is ready for a price offer, you create a quotation from it.

Before you begin

• Opportunities requires the Contacts, Product Catalog and Pricing modules. Deals are made for companies and contacts from Contacts, and product lines use the product catalog with prices and discounts from Pricing.
• Open the module from Opportunities in the main menu (/m/crm). You need crm.opportunity.read.
• To manage pipelines and their stages, you need Manage pipelines and stages (crm.manage).

Key concepts

Concept	What it means
Account	The company the deal is with.
Main contact	The person you deal with at the account.
Value and Currency	How much the deal is worth. The currency defaults to your organization's. When the deal has product lines, the value is their total.
Expected close	When you expect the deal to close. Used by the forecast.
Pipeline and Stage	The steps the deal goes through. New deals start in the default pipeline's first open stage.
Probability	How likely the deal is to close. It's the stage's default unless you set the deal's own. Won deals count 100 %, lost deals 0 %.
Weighted value	Value × probability. Used for the pipeline totals and the forecast.
Status	Open, Won or Lost.

Find your way around

The Opportunities page has four tabs:

• List: every deal you can see, with search (Search opportunities), quick filters for Status and Pipeline (when you have more than one), the Filter builder, saved Views, sorting, Columns, import and export. The list shows Name, Account, Stage (or the won/lost status), Value, Probability, Expected close and Owner by default, sorted by expected close date. You can also show Weighted value, Main contact and Source.
• Board: a pipeline as a Kanban board.
• Forecast: open deals by expected close month.
• Pipelines: set up pipelines and stages. Shown only with crm.manage.

Which deals you see depends on your role: the permissions can be granted for your own deals, your team's or all deals. The board and forecast only include deals you can see.

Create an opportunity

1. Select New opportunity.
2. Enter a Name, and choose the Account and Main contact.
3. Enter the Value, Currency and Expected close date.
4. Optionally set a Probability (leave it empty to use the stage's), an Owner, a Source and a Description.
5. Select Create. The deal's page opens.

The deal starts in the default pipeline's first open stage.

tip

You can also create an opportunity while converting a lead: in the Convert dialog, keep Also create an opportunity checked. The deal is created for the new contact and company, owned by the lead's owner, with the contact as Decision maker. See Convert a lead.

Work an opportunity

Select a deal's name to open its page. The header shows its status, account, value and expected close date, with Edit, delete, and Reopen (for closed deals).

Below the header, the stage path shows the pipeline's open stages, with Mark won and Mark lost at the end. The page also has:

• a details card with Value, Currency, Expected close, Probability with the Weighted value, Main contact, Owner, Source, Closed and Description;
• Products: the deal's product lines;
• Contacts involved: the people involved and their roles;
• Quotations from the Sales module, with New quotation;
• sections from other modules, such as notes, tasks, activities and custom fields.

An opportunity's page: move it along the stage path, add products and contacts, and create quotations.

Move a deal to another stage

• On the deal's page, select a stage in the stage path.
• On the Board, drag the card to another column, or use the card's Move to menu.

A message confirms "Moved to stage". When the deal's own probability is empty, its probability follows the new stage's.

Add products

1. In Products, select Edit products.
2. Select Add a product and choose an Item from the product catalog.
3. Enter the Quantity. Unit price and Discount % are filled in from the Pricing module: the customer's price book or the list price, and the matching discount rule. Leave the unit price empty to use the price book's.
4. Change the price or discount by hand if needed. Discounts must stay within your limit, shown as "Your largest discount: n %".
5. Select Save.

With product lines, the deal's value is the lines' Total. Without lines, the value is entered by hand.

note

A product used on a deal's lines can't be deleted from the catalog.

Add the contacts involved

1. In Contacts involved, select Edit contacts.
2. Select Add a contact, choose the person and their role: Decision maker, Economic buyer, Technical buyer, Influencer, Champion, User or Other. Each person can be listed once.
3. Select Save.

The deal then appears on each of those people's pages.

Mark a deal won or lost

1. Select Mark won or Mark lost in the stage path, or drop the card on the Won or Lost column of the board.
2. Choose a Reason. It's required when a deal is lost.
   • Won reasons: Price, Product fit, Relationship, Timing, Other.
   • Lost reasons: Price, Lost to a competitor, No budget, No decision, Timing, Product fit, Other.
3. Optionally add a Note, then select Mark won or Mark lost in the dialog.

The deal moves to the pipeline's won or lost stage and records the date it closed. The reason and note appear under the stage path.

To reopen a closed deal, select Reopen. It goes back to the pipeline's last open stage.

Create a quotation from a deal

On the deal's page, in Quotations, select New quotation. A draft quotation is created with the deal's account, main contact, currency, owner and product lines (quantity, unit price and discount), and opens so you can finish it. All of the deal's quotations are listed in this section. See Quotations.

The board

The Board tab: one column per stage, with the open and weighted value of the pipeline.

1. Open the Board tab.
2. Pick the pipeline in the Pipeline menu. You can also search deals.
3. Read the pipeline's Open deals total and Weighted value at the top, per currency. Each column shows its total.

The board shows each stage's open deals, plus deals won or lost in the last 30 days. Drag a card to move it, or use its Move to menu. Dropping a card on Won or Lost asks for the reason. When a column has more deals than fit, a "more: use the list" note points you to the List tab.

The forecast

The Forecast tab shows open deals by expected close month, at full and weighted value, beside what was won.

1. Open the Forecast tab.
2. Choose a Pipeline, or All pipelines.
3. Set the From and To months. By default, the forecast covers this month and the next five.

Each row is a Month and Currency, with the number of Open deals, their Value and Weighted value, and the value Won that month. Open deals without an expected close date are counted separately below the table.

The forecast: open deals by expected close month, weighted, beside what was won.

Pipelines and stages

Each organization starts with a Sales pipeline:

Stage	Kind	Default probability
Qualification	Open	10 %
Needs analysis	Open	25 %
Proposal	Open	50 %
Negotiation	Open	75 %
Won	Won	100 %
Lost	Lost	0 %

Add a pipeline

1. Open the Pipelines tab and select New pipeline.
2. Enter a Name, keep Active on, and select Create.

A new pipeline starts with three stages: Open, Won and Lost. Open it to set up its stages.

Set up stages

Select a pipeline's name to open its page. The Stages table lists each stage's Name, Kind and Probability.

• New stage: enter a Name, a default Probability and a Kind (Open, Won or Lost).
• Edit (pencil button): rename a stage or change its probability.
• Move up and Move down: change the order of stages.
• Make default: new deals start in this pipeline.
• Edit in the page header: rename the pipeline or make it inactive.

A pipeline's page: add, rename, reweight and reorder its stages.

Rules that keep pipelines consistent:

• A pipeline keeps at least one won stage and one lost stage.
• A stage with deals can't be deleted.
• A pipeline with deals can't be deleted, and neither can the default pipeline. Deleting a pipeline deletes its stages.

How opportunities connect to other modules

Lead ──convert──▶ Contact + Company + Opportunity ──▶ Quotation ──▶ Sales order ──▶ Invoice ──▶ Payment

• Leads: converting a lead can open an opportunity in the same step. The opportunity keeps the lead's source and notes. See Leads.
• Contacts: a company's page lists its deals, and a person's page lists the deals where they're the main contact or involved. Deleting an account or contact unlinks it from its deals. Merging two contacts moves their deals and roles to the remaining contact. See Contacts and companies.
• Sales: create quotations from a deal. An accepted quotation becomes a sales order, which is invoiced and paid. Invoices and payments then show in accounts receivable.

note

Accepting a quotation doesn't close the opportunity. Mark the deal won yourself when the customer commits.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows	Granted by default to
crm.opportunity.read	View opportunities	Admin, Member
crm.opportunity.write	Create and edit opportunities, move them, mark them won or lost, reopen them	Admin, Member
crm.opportunity.delete	Delete opportunities	Admin
crm.manage	Manage pipelines and stages	Admin

The three opportunity permissions can be limited per role to own, team or all deals, based on the deal's owner.

Troubleshooting

• There's no Pipelines tab. You need Manage pipelines and stages.
• I can't delete a stage or pipeline. It still has deals, or it's the default pipeline, or it's the pipeline's only won or lost stage. Move the deals first.
• "Your largest discount" stops me from saving products. Your role's discount limit is lower than the discount you entered. Ask someone with a higher limit, or lower the discount. See Pricing and discounts.
• A deal doesn't appear on the board. The board shows one pipeline at a time and only deals closed in the last 30 days. Check the Pipeline menu, or use the List tab.