Pipelines and the Deals Board

Pipelines and Stages

Every deal sits in one pipeline, at one of its stages. CRM starts with one pipeline, Sales pipeline, the default, with the stages Qualification (10%), Needs analysis (20%), Proposal (60%), Negotiation (80%), Closed won (100%, won), and Closed lost (0%, lost).

• A deal that names no pipeline, or a pipeline that no longer exists, is in the default pipeline.
• A stage has a name, a probability from 0 to 100, and a type: open, won, or lost. A deal is open unless its stage is won or lost. A stage name the pipeline does not have (from an import, for example) counts as open, and the board shows those deals under Other stages.
• Each pipeline needs at least one open, one won, and one lost stage, up to 30 stages, and stage names that differ. A company can have up to 20 pipelines, each with its own name.

See the pipelines and how many deals each stage has with action crm.pipelines.list.

Changing Pipelines

Owners and admins manage pipelines in CRM Setup, Pipelines:

• Add Pipeline or Change opens the pipeline form: its name and its stages, in order. Add, rename, reorder, and remove stages (action crm.pipelines.save).
• Renaming a stage moves its deals with it. Renaming a pipeline moves the deals that name it.
• Removing a stage that deals use asks where to move them: choose a stage of the same pipeline under Move the deals at. A stage no deal uses goes at once.
• Make Default makes a pipeline the default (action crm.pipelines.default).
• Delete removes a pipeline that is not the default (action crm.pipelines.delete). If deals use it, choose a pipeline and stage to move them to first. The default pipeline cannot be deleted: make another the default first.

Every move is a normal change to the deal, kept in its history, and each pipeline change is recorded in the activity log.

Probability Fills in from the Stage

When a deal's stage is set or changes, however it is saved (the board, the deal's page, an import, or an AI agent), its probability becomes the stage's probability within moments, unless the same save gave its own. Changing a stage's probability later does not change deals already there.

The Deals Board

Board shows a pipeline's deals by stage, with each stage's count and total, and the open deals' count and total at the top (action crm.board). Choose another pipeline from the list when you have more than one. A stage shows up to 100 cards; the rest are in Deals.

Move a deal to another stage (action crm.deals.move) in either of two ways:

• Drag the card by its handle onto another stage, with a mouse, pen, or finger.
• Move to: choose a stage from the card's list. This works by keyboard too.

On phones the board shows one stage at a time: choose the stage from the list at the top. A deal's page also has a Stage list. Moving a deal sets its stage and its probability. If someone changed the deal since you opened the board, the move is refused and the board catches up.

AI Agents

Agents can list pipelines, see the board, move deals, add and change pipelines, and make one the default. Only people delete pipelines.