Deals pipeline
Deals is the sales pipeline inside the CRM: one card per
opportunity, moving through the stages your business sells in. Open it at
…/hosts/{site}/crm/deals; a single deal has its own page at
…/crm/deals/{id}.
Deals are part of the CRM, included from Starter. On Free the section is shown locked, with the rest of the CRM. A deal is a CRM record, counted with contacts and companies against your plan's records band — see CRM records.
Pipelines
Every workspace on a plan with the CRM starts with one pipeline, Sales. A new pipeline starts with Salesforce's standard Opportunity stages:
| Stage | Probability | Forecast category |
|---|---|---|
| Prospecting | 10% | Pipeline |
| Qualification | 10% | Pipeline |
| Needs Analysis | 20% | Pipeline |
| Value Proposition | 50% | Pipeline |
| Id. Decision Makers | 60% | Pipeline |
| Perception Analysis | 70% | Pipeline |
| Proposal/Price Quote | 75% | Best Case |
| Negotiation/Review | 90% | Commit |
| Closed Won | 100% | Closed |
| Closed Lost | 0% | Omitted |
The pipeline is created the first time somebody opens the Deals section, so there is nothing to set up before the first deal. A pipeline created before these stages became the default keeps the stages it has; nothing is changed for you.
A business that sells more than one way — new accounts and renewals, retail and wholesale — can run more than one pipeline, each with its own stages and its own board. Open Pipelines on the Deals section to:
- Create a pipeline. Give it a name; it starts with the default stages, which you can then edit. Names are unique among the active pipelines.
- Rename a pipeline.
- Set as default. New deals land in the default pipeline unless the New deal drawer picks another; there is always exactly one default.
- Archive a pipeline that holds no open deal. The default pipeline and the last active one cannot be archived; close or move the open deals first. An archived pipeline is never deleted — the deals it closed still show their stages — and can be restored later.
- Edit stages of a pipeline (below).
When there is more than one active pipeline, a pipeline switcher appears in the section header. The board, the table, the three figures above them and the New deal drawer all follow it.
Stages
Each stage carries a probability — the chance a deal in that stage closes — which is what the weighted forecast multiplies by — and a forecast category: where a deal that lands in the stage is forecast. The categories are Salesforce's fixed set — Omitted, Pipeline, Best Case, Commit and Closed — and cannot be renamed or added to, because a forecast rolls up by them. Won is always 100% and Closed, Lost is always 0% and Omitted, and the stages in between are yours to set; a stage that never had a category reads as Pipeline.
Edit stages on a pipeline lets you:
- Rename a stage or change its probability or its forecast category. A new category applies to the deals that move into the stage from then on.
- Reorder the open stages with the up and down arrows.
- Add a stage. New stages are open stages; every pipeline keeps exactly one Won and one Lost.
- Remove a stage that no deal is in. A stage with deals in it cannot be removed — move the deals first, so nothing is left pointing at a stage that no longer exists.
The board and the table
The section opens as a board of the chosen pipeline: one column per open stage, with Won and Lost folded away at the end until you expand them. A stage with no deals in it folds to a narrow labeled strip, so the stages holding work get the room; you can still drag a card onto it. When the board is still wider than the window, arrows at either end page it sideways, and it scrolls like any other row. Each card shows the deal's title, amount, the contact and company it is with, its owner, and how many days it has sat in its current stage. Drag a card between columns to move it, or use the card's menu to move it, mark it won, or mark it lost from the keyboard.
Above the board, three figures summarize what is open: the open count, the pipeline value (every open deal's amount, per currency) and the weighted value (each amount multiplied by its probability — the deal's own when it has one, otherwise its stage's).
Switch to the table for a paged list with the title, stage, amount, owner, expected close date, status and next activity of every deal in the chosen pipeline, including the closed ones, most recently changed first. Type and Lead source are optional columns: turn them on from the column menu. The table's Filters panel narrows it by Status (open, won or lost — one, or any of them), by Type and by Lead source (one value, any of several, or No type / No lead source), and Next activity › is empty keeps only the deals with no open task scheduled against them — the ones the reports page counts as stuck. Search finds a deal by any word of its title.
Every filter and the search are answered by the table's query, so they reach every deal in the pipeline, a page at a time, not only the page on screen, and filters on different columns add up. The search matches whole words from their start — "cof" finds Coffee, a fragment from the middle of a word does not — one word at a time: type several and it searches the first, and says so. Under a site, a member whose access is limited to particular sites searches by the start of a deal's title, and a notice says so. When a combination cannot be answered by one query, the table does not apply that filter, and a notice above it names the filter and says why; see Filter and search a list. The Deal, Amount, Expected close, Status and Next activity headers sort the whole pipeline; the other headers sort the rows of the page on screen and say so (see Columns and sort). The board has no filters.
The table's rows have checkboxes: tick some and a bulk bar
appears above it to set their stage, set their owner, mark them lost with one
reason, export them or delete them. Export… in the card's header opens the
export dialog on the list's current filter or every deal, and
the bar's on the selection: every field, your deal custom fields
included — the pipeline, stage, contact (by email), company and campaign by
name, the contact roles as email (Role), the owner by email — as CSV, JSON
or NDJSON. Export pipelines… in the Pipelines dialog writes
each pipeline with its stages in order.
Import and export
Import in the card's header takes a file of deals — a Salesforce opportunities report, a HubSpot or Pipedrive export, a forecast sheet — through the import wizard: every column matched to a field, a dry run that shows what each row will do, a choice for every conflict, and undo for seven days. Importing needs the same Manage data permission as creating a deal.
A row finds its deal by Aglyn ID or by its External ID — the id the deal had in the product it came from (Salesforce's Opportunity ID, HubSpot's Record ID) — so importing the same file again updates those deals rather than filing them twice.
| Field | What is read |
|---|---|
| Deal name | Required for a new deal. |
| External ID | Kept on the deal; what a later import finds it by. |
| Pipeline, Stage | By name. Empty, the default pipeline and its first open stage. A name the workspace has no pipeline or stage for fails that row, named in the results. A new deal filed into Won or Lost is closed on arrival. A matched deal's pipeline and stage are never moved by a file: a stage moves on the board, where the move tells your automations. |
| Amount | An amount with its currency ($1,250, 1250 EUR); US dollars when none is named. |
| Expected close | A calendar day. |
| Contact | A contact by email — the deal's Primary contact role. |
| Company | A company by its domain or name; one your CRM does not hold can be created. |
| Contact roles | Each contact by email with their role in parentheses, the Primary first: ana@acme.com (Decision Maker); bo@acme.com. |
| Owner | A member of your workspace, by email or name. |
| Type, Lead source | Your organization's values, by label; a new deal with no Type takes the list's default. |
| Next step, Lost reason, Notes | Text. |
| Probability, Forecast category | A percent from 0 to 100; Omitted, Pipeline, Best Case, Commit or Closed. Empty, the stage's. |
| Campaign | A campaign by name. |
| Custom fields | Every deal field you defined under Fields. |
A contact, company or owner the file names that your CRM does not hold, and a list value your organization lacks, are listed on the wizard's Values step with a choice for each. Status and Closed are exported and never imported: the stage decides them. A new deal counts against your plan's records band.
At the organization level, Import first asks which site the deals are filed under.
Creating a deal
New deal opens a drawer. A deal needs only a title; everything else is optional:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Pipeline and stage | Where the deal starts. The pipeline list holds every active pipeline and opens on the one the board is showing; the stage defaults to its first open stage. |
| Amount and currency | What the deal is worth. Currency defaults to US dollars; the amount is stored in minor units, so 1,250.00 is exact. On a deal with line items the amount is their sum and is read-only here. |
| Expected close | The date you expect to close it — what a forecast by month reads. |
| Owner | The teammate responsible. Picked from your workspace's members. |
| Contact | The person the deal is with, searched by name or email from your contacts — the deal's Primary contact role. Picking another makes them Primary. |
| Company | The organization, searched by name from your companies. |
| Type | Salesforce's Type: New Business, Existing Business, or one of your own — see Type and lead source. A new deal with none takes the list's default, when it has one. |
| Lead source | Where the deal came from — the same list a lead's lead source is picked from. |
| Next step | What happens next, up to 255 characters. |
| Probability | This deal's own chance of closing, a whole percent. Leave it blank to use the stage's, which the field shows as From stage: N%. |
| Forecast category | Where the deal is forecast. From the stage uses the stage's category. |
| Campaign | The campaign the deal is attributed to — Salesforce's Primary Campaign Source — one of the campaigns your leads are filed under. |
| Notes | Anything the card cannot carry. |
A deal is visible to the same sites as a contact captured on this site would be, so a site that cannot see the person cannot see the deal.
Type and lead source
A deal's Type and Lead source are picklists, as in Salesforce. Type ships with Salesforce's standard values, Existing Business and New Business; add your own, rename, reorder, deactivate them or set a default on the Deals tab of Custom fields. Lead source is the list a lead's own lead source comes from, managed on the Leads tab; renaming or deleting a value there moves every lead, contact and deal that holds it. A deal keeps a value it already holds after the value is deactivated.
When a lead is converted with a deal, the deal takes the lead's lead source, and the Type the convert dialog shows — the list's default until you pick another.
Contact roles
A deal can name more than one person: Salesforce's Opportunity Contact Roles. The Contact roles card on a deal's page lists every contact on the deal, the part each plays, and which one is Primary:
- Add contact (in the card's header) opens a dialog: pick a contact, a role, and whether they are the Primary. The first contact on a deal is always its Primary.
- Each row's Role select changes the part they play; Make primary moves the Primary to them; the remove button takes them off the deal.
A deal names up to 50 contacts, each once, and at most one is Primary.
The Primary is the deal's contact. The Contact field of the deal
drawer, the email button on the deal's page, the CSV's Contact column, the
won-deal customer floor and the
REST contactId all read the Primary. Picking a contact in the drawer makes
them Primary — adding them with no role when the deal did not name them — and
clearing it leaves the deal with no Primary. A deal created before contact
roles reads as its one contact, Primary, with no role.
The roles are a picklist with Salesforce's standard values: Business User, Decision Maker, Economic Buyer, Economic Decision Maker, Evaluator, Executive Sponsor, Influencer, Technical Buyer and Other. Add your own, rename, reorder or deactivate them on the Deals tab of Custom fields; a rename moves every deal that holds the role, and a contact keeps a role after it is deactivated.
Where else contact roles appear:
- A contact's page lists the deals the person is on in any role, with the role beside each. A teammate whose access is limited to some sites sees the deals that name the person as Primary.
- Converting a lead with a deal makes the converted contact the deal's Primary, with no role yet.
- Merging two contacts moves the merged person's roles to the survivor; on a deal that named both, the survivor keeps one row, taking the merged record's role where it had none and its Primary where it was.
- Deleting or erasing a contact takes them off every deal; a deal whose Primary they were is left with none.
- The deals CSV has a Contact roles column —
Jane Doe (Decision Maker, Primary); Sam Lee (Evaluator)— which an import reads past: a contact is put on a deal from its page. - The REST API reads and writes the list as
contactRoles, and CRM by AI reads them as part of the deal.
Line items
A deal's amount can be a number you type, or the sum of the products behind it. The Products card on a deal's page lists its line items — each a name, a quantity and a unit amount in the deal's currency — and Add line opens a dialog with two doors:
- From the catalog searches this site's active products by name and offers each variant at its catalog price. Catalog prices are in US dollars; on a deal in another currency the dialog says so, and the unit amount can be edited before the line is added.
- By hand takes a name and a price with no product behind them. A plan without commerce has no catalog to search, so this is the only door it shows, and the dialog says that adding lines from your catalog needs a plan with the store, with See plans linking to Billing.
Once a deal has a line item, its amount is the lines' sum: the Amount field in the Edit drawer turns read-only with a caption saying so, and every change to the lines — a quantity edited in place, a line removed — writes the new sum with it. Remove the last line and the amount is yours to type again, starting from the last sum. A deal carries at most fifty lines, all in the deal's currency.
Line items travel over the REST API as lineItems,
with the same rules.
Moving, winning and losing
Moving, winning, losing and reopening a deal take the Move contacts and deals between stages permission as well as Manage data. Without it, these controls stay in view, switched off.
Stage changes go through the server rather than being written directly, so that automations can hear them. Three events fire, and each can trigger a workflow or action — see Automations for the CRM:
| Event | When |
|---|---|
dealStageChanged | A deal moves between open stages, or is reopened. |
dealWon | A deal is marked won. |
dealLost | A deal is marked lost. Marking a deal lost asks for a reason, which is kept on the deal. |
Every move also gives the deal the new stage's forecast category and clears its own probability, so it forecasts at the new stage's odds — as Salesforce re-defaults a probability when the stage changes. Edit the deal afterwards to set either again.
Every event carries the deal's id, title, amount and currency, its new and previous stage, and the owner, contact and company ids, so a workflow can notify the owner, file a task, or act on the person.
A won deal makes its contact a customer
Marking a deal won sets the linked contact's lifecycle stage to Customer — the same rule an order applies: a person with no stage or an earlier one becomes a customer, and nobody is ever moved back, so an Evangelist who closes another deal stays an evangelist and a stage of Other is never overwritten. It happens on the move into the won stage itself, whichever way the deal got there — the board, a card's menu, the deal's page, the bulk bar, the organization-level board, or the REST API — and there is nothing to switch on: a won deal is a customer by definition. The stage is written for the site the deal was made on, so a sibling site that also knows the person keeps its own reading of them.
When the stage did move, a Contact changed stage event follows the Deal won event, so an automation that starts when somebody becomes a customer hears it; the organization's activity feed line for the win says contact now a customer. An automation on Deal won is for what happens next — the Follow up a won deal recipe books a check-in call and sets no stage, because the win already did.
A deal's page
A deal's page is where you work one deal: its stage, what it is worth, the people on it and what is owed on it, each on a card of its own. Opening a deal shows:
- The header — the deal's title in the page heading and the trail, the pipeline and stage under its kind, its status, amount and owner as chips, Back to deals, Edit, and a menu (⋮) carrying Delete deal.
- Stage — the deal's path through the whole pipeline, the way Salesforce draws one: every open stage, so the stages still ahead are always in view, then a final Closed step. Choose an open stage to move there; choose Closed to mark the deal won or lost (the Won and Lost buttons do the same). On a closed deal the path stays, every stage ticked and the last step reading the pipeline's own name for the verdict, with the way to reopen it below. The line under an open deal's path says how long it has sat in its stage, its probability and its forecast category.
- Properties — what the deal is worth and where it stands; see Deal properties.
- Contact roles — every person on the deal, the part each plays, and the Primary; see Contact roles.
- Products — the line items behind the amount, with the door to add one from the catalog or by hand.
- Tasks and Activity — what is owed on this deal and what has happened on it.
Deal properties
The Properties card lists what the deal is worth and where it stands; to change any of it, choose Edit in the page's header, which carries a control for each.
It shows the amount and its weighted value, the probability (the deal's own beside its stage's, 40% · from stage: 75%), the forecast category, the expected close, the type, lead source and next step, the owner, links to the contact and the company, the campaign, the notes, and one row per custom field defined on the Deals tab of the Fields section.
Deals on a contact or a company
The Deals card on a contact's or a company's page lists every deal that names that record, newest first, and New deal in its header starts one already linked to them.
On a contact's page the card also lists the deals the person is on in any other contact role, with the part they play beside each.
Files
The Files card attaches assets from the media library to this record: contracts, quotes, a signed proposal, a photo of the site.
- Attach… opens the media browser. At a site you can pick from the site's own library and the workspace's shared one; at the organization hub only the shared library is offered, because a record there belongs to the workspace rather than to one site.
- A record holds up to 20 files.
- The ✕ beside a file removes the attachment. The file itself is untouched and stays in the library.
Files are stored by id, not by address. A file moved between folders keeps its attachment, and a private file is still served through the signed link that checks who is asking rather than through a public URL. A file deleted from the library is still listed, marked as no longer there, so an attachment never disappears without saying so.
Attachments are readable and writable through the
REST API as mediaIds.
Related
- CRM overview
- Companies and the contact record — the two records a deal is with
- Tasks & follow-ups and Activities & the timeline — what is owed on a deal and what has happened on it
- Bulk actions — stage, owner, loss, export and delete over a selection
- Import contacts and companies
- Reports — the open pipeline, its weighted forecast, and won against lost
- Automations for the CRM — the three deal events, and what a won deal does on its own
- Workflows & actions
- REST API — deals and pipelines