Clockwork CRMDocs

Pipelines and stages

A pipeline is the sequence of stages an opportunity moves through. Every opportunity belongs to one pipeline, and sits in one stage of it at a time.

You can create more than one pipeline, so different kinds of business can follow different stages.

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Managing pipelines

Go to Sales → Pipelines. List Pipelines on the left shows every pipeline with its colour. Search finds a pipeline by name. Selecting a pipeline opens it on the right.

The pipelines list with a pipeline open, showing its name, colour, properties and stages

Changes to a pipeline, its stages and its properties are kept only when you select Save at the foot of the pipeline.

Adding a pipeline

  1. Select Add Pipeline at the foot of the list.
  2. Enter a Name, up to 100 characters. It is required.
  3. Choose a colour. The colour marks the pipeline on the list, on opportunity records and in the pipeline pickers.
  4. Add the pipeline's properties and stages, as below.
  5. Select Save.

A pipeline's settings

Section What it holds
General Details The pipeline's Name and colour
Properties The custom properties shown on every opportunity in the pipeline, whatever its stage
Stages The pipeline's stages, in order

Stages

Every pipeline has three stages that are always there and cannot be changed:

Stage Meaning
Open The first stage. An opportunity is live and has not reached a stage of your own yet
Won The opportunity closed as won
Lost The opportunity closed as lost

Your own stages sit between Open and the two closing stages, in the order shown.

To Do this
Add a stage Type its name into Stage Name, up to 100 characters, and select Add Stage or press Enter. It is added at the end, with a random colour
Rename a stage Click its name, type the new name, and press Enter or click away. Names are cut to 100 characters
Change a stage's colour Click the colour swatch at the start of the stage
Reorder stages Drag a stage up or down
Choose a stage's properties Select the Manage Properties button next to the stage. The number on it is how many properties the stage has
Delete a stage Select the bin icon next to the stage and confirm

A stage's colour is used for its column on the board, on the stage bar of an opportunity record, and on the pipeline funnel on the dashboard.

A deleted stage is removed from the board, the stage bar and the stage pickers, and its properties go back to the available list. In the board and list filters it is listed with (Archived) after its name.

Properties on a pipeline and its stages

Custom properties can be attached to a pipeline and to individual stages, so different information is collected at different points in the deal.

Both use the same picker, with two lists:

  • Selected Properties: the properties in use. Untick one to remove it. Drag them to set the order they appear in.
  • Available Properties: the properties not yet used in this pipeline. Tick one to add it.

A property can be used once in a pipeline: either on the pipeline itself or on one of its stages. Once it is selected, it leaves the available list for the rest of the pipeline.

Attached to Where it is collected
Pipeline (the Properties section) On every opportunity in the pipeline, whatever its stage
Stage (Manage Properties, then Stage Properties) When an opportunity reaches that stage, and shown at every later stage

When an opportunity is added or moved, the form shows the pipeline's properties and the properties of the stage it is going to, along with those of any earlier stages. Moving an opportunity forward several stages at once asks for the properties of each stage it passes. Moving it to Won or Lost asks for the properties of the stages it has not yet reached, and for closing notes. The Move dialog also asks for the close date.

Moving to Won: an earlier stage's required property, then the closing fields

Properties themselves are created at Sales → Properties. See Custom properties.

Moving between pipelines

An opportunity can be moved to a different pipeline with Move, on its record or in the list's actions menu. You choose the stage it goes into in the new pipeline, and fill in that pipeline's properties. See Moving an opportunity.

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