Set up your pipeline stages

Make the stages match how your business actually works. A dental clinic might use Enquiry, Consultation booked, Treatment plan sent, Patient and Not going ahead; a fitness coach might use New lead, Discovery call, Trial week, Client and Lost.

Before you start

• Decide which stage means a sale (won) and which means a lost lead. The app uses these two marks: paid contacts move to the won stage by themselves, and new leads never start in either.

Steps

1. Open Contacts › Pipeline.
2. Press Edit stages. The Edit pipeline stages window opens. Every change takes effect straight away.
3. Rename a stage: click its name, type the new one and press Enter.
4. Recolour it: click the colour square on its left and pick a colour.
5. Reorder: use the up and down arrows beside a stage.
6. Mark won or lost: press the won or lost label on a stage. It lights up green or red. Press it again to remove the mark.
7. Add a stage: at the bottom, pick a colour, type a name in New stage name, for example Consultation booked, and press Add (or Enter). New stages go at the end; move them up with the arrows.
8. Delete a stage: press the bin beside it. Under Move contacts in this stage to: choose where its contacts should go, then press Delete. Press Cancel to back out.
9. Close the window when you are done.

What happens next

• The board, the stage button on each contact's record, and the stage picker in workflows all use your stages straight away.
• New contacts land in the first stage that is neither won nor lost, so keep your entry stage at the top.
• Deleting a stage moves all its contacts to the stage you chose before it is removed. Nobody is lost.
• Renaming a stage changes the name you see. Contacts stay in it, and workflows that name the stage keep working.

For agencies

Stages belong to each client's account. Open the client first (Sub-accounts › Open) to set up their pipeline.

Troubleshooting

An error appears when I press won or lost. Only one stage can be marked won and only one lost, and no stage can be both. Remove the mark from the other stage first, then set it on this one.

The Delete button in the confirmation stays grey. Choose a stage under Move contacts in this stage to: first.

The bin is greyed out. That is your last stage. A pipeline needs at least one.

A spreadsheet import doesn't recognise my renamed stage. Imports match a stage's internal name, which is set when the stage is created and does not change when you rename it. The import window lists the exact values under Valid stage values.

An error appears when I add a stage. A stage with the same or a very similar name already exists (names that differ only in capitals, spaces or punctuation count as the same). Use a different name.

I can't change how many days a stage waits before it turns amber. The "stale after" times can't be changed in this window. The stages every account starts with have them; stages you add never turn amber or red.

Related

• Understand the pipeline
• Move contacts between stages
• Start a workflow when someone moves stage
• Import contacts from a CSV file