A pipeline is the path a sale takes, for example New lead → Contacted → Quote sent, then Won or Lost. A business can have several: one for new customers, one for renewals, one for wedding bookings.
Pipelines are managed in the business's Settings → Pipelines by owners and managers. The agency can switch this off for a client's business (the same switch as custom fields and tags).
Make a pipeline
New pipeline → give it a name and its stages, one per line (it suggests New lead, Contacted and Quote sent). Won and Lost are added at the end for you; they can be renamed but not removed. Add stage adds more later. Names are unique: no two pipelines with the same name, and no two stages with the same name in one pipeline.
Each stage can have a probability: how likely a deal at that stage is to close.
Change a pipeline
- Reorder pipelines and stages with the up / down arrows;
- Rename a pipeline or a stage at any time (deals stay where they are);
- Duplicate a pipeline: a copy with the same stages and settings, but no deals;
- Delete stage: choose Move its opportunities to another stage; they move there, then the stage goes. A pipeline keeps at least one open stage;
- Delete a pipeline: it and its opportunities are hidden, and Recently deleted lets you Restore them for 30 days. The agency's Prospects pipeline can't be deleted.
Several open deals per contact
By default a contact can have more than one open opportunity in the same pipeline (a roofer quoting a roof and a gutter job). Untick Allow several open opportunities per contact for a pipeline where one at a time makes more sense; then adding a second open deal for that contact is refused with a link to the first.
Lost reasons
When a deal is lost, people are asked Why was it lost? and can pick a reason from the business's list (Too expensive, Went with someone else, No response, Not a good fit to start with) or leave it at No reason, plus a note. Owners and managers add (New reason), rename and archive reasons under Settings → Pipelines → Lost reasons; Bring back restores an archived one. Archived reasons stay on the deals that have them.
The Prospects pipeline
Your agency's own business has a Prospects pipeline. Every lead from your prospect tool becomes a contact with an opportunity in its first stage, once per lead.