Introduction

A sales pipeline represents different stages in a sale that a deal moves through, from initiation to closure. 

For example, a company that sells audio equipment may have the following sales stages for selling Loudspeakers: New, Qualification, Value Proposition, Negotiation, and Closed.

Need for multiple sales pipelines

Different businesses follow different sales cycles, and this raises the need for having multiple sales pipelines. Also, every stage in a pipeline has a specific set of work items. This is why Vtiger CRM allows you to create multiple pipelines and customize them based on product lines, deal size, or customer type. For example, a company can have separate pipelines for selling headphones and home theatre systems. It can also have two different pipelines for its large and small customers.

Standard Pipeline and Stages

Vtiger CRM provides you with a default Standard pipeline that can be customized by adding or deleting sales stages, to suit the sales process of your business. The pipeline cannot be deleted since there must be at least one pipeline to map to the sales process. 

The Standard pipeline comes with default stages and probabilities.

Feature Availability 

This feature is available in One Growth, One Professional, and One Enterprise editions of Vtiger CRM.

Benefits of multiple pipelines

• Tailored sales cycle based on the type of selling
• Customized sales activities based on the pipeline type
• Organization of sales teams based on the pipeline type, with incentives structured around the pipeline type
• Listing of deals based on the pipeline type, making it easy for sales teams to view the deals relevant to them

Creating a Pipeline

 Follow these steps to create a sales pipeline:

1. Log in to your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu on the top right corner of the screen.
3. Click Settings.
4. Look for the Marketing & Sales section.
5. Select Pipeline & Stages.
6. Click the +Add Pipeline button.
7. Fill out the following fields in the Create Pipeline block:

• Pipeline Name -Name of the pipeline.
• Pipeline can be assigned by - Enter or Select Roles that are allowed to assign the pipeline.
• Description - A short description of the pipeline.​​​​​​

8. Click the +Add Sales Stage button in the Sales Stage block. You can use the default stages for the new pipeline or add new stages.
9. Fill out the following fields.

• Sales Stage - Name of the sales stage
• Probability - Percentage value for the sales stage
• Sales stage can be assigned by - Roles that are allowed to assign the sales stage
• Select Color - Choose a color to highlight the sales stage. (You can choose a custom color.)

10. Click Save to add the new sales stage to the pipeline.
11. Rearrange the values to suit your business’ sales process by dragging and dropping them. 
12. Click Save to add the new pipeline to CRM. 

Using Pipelines 

Let us learn about the areas where sales pipelines are used in Vtiger CRM.

• Journey Templates: The Journey Templates widget in a deal and the Deal Journey View lists activities associated with each stage of the pipeline associated with a deal.
• Moving a deal to a different pipeline: There might arise a need to move one or more deals to a different pipeline for better compliance with the sales cycle. You can do this from Deal Journey View and select the new sales stage and probability value for a deal.
  • When a deal is associated with a pipeline, the time spent by the deal in each sales stage of the pipeline is recorded. To move the deal to another pipeline, you must map the time spent in the sales stages of the current pipeline to the sales stages in the new pipeline. 
  • To learn more about moving a deal to a different pipeline, click here.
  • Note: In the case where the current and target sales stages have the same names, time spent in the current stage is mapped automatically to the target stage. 
• Kanban View: Pipelines and pipeline stages are available as filters in the Kanban View for the Deals module.  
  • What can you do in the Kanban View - In the Kanban View, you can move a deal from one sales stage to another with a drag-and-drop action. Also, you can move a deal from its current stage to Closed Won, Closed Lost, or to another pipeline.
• Sales Insights: Pipelines and pipeline stages are available as filters in Sales Insights.
• List View: Default lists such as ‘My Deals’, ‘All Deals’, and ‘Deals Shared With Me’ in Vtiger have Pipeline as a default column. 
  • Pipeline and Sales Stage can be added as columns in custom lists.
• Workflows: Pipeline and Sales Stages can be used to create Entry Criteria. Pipeline and Sales Stages can be used in the following Workflow actions - 
  • Send Mail
  • Update Fields
  • Create Record
  • SMS Task

Limitations

• Picklist dependency between Pipeline and Stages does not work in:
  • Webforms
  • Web services like REST APIs, Mobile APIs, Webhooks, Integration with Third-Party Services and more
  • Gmail plug-in
  • Workflows' Create Record action
  • Workflows' Update Fields action
  • Import and List View merge
• The default values for Probability in pipelines are not available in:
  • Webforms
  • Web services
• Gmail plug-in
• Workflows’ Create Record action
• Vtiger 360