Stages:

A deal passes through various stages as it progresses through its lifecycle. These stages vary by the deal type and also by the enterprise owning the deal. For example a deal concerning contract renewal will have different stages as compared to a deal doing a new sale of products.

As such the stages are defined as Stage Template. There can be multiple Stage Templates - one for each type of deal handled by the enterprise. All such Stage Templates are part of the Enterprise Template. The Enterprise Template is loaded as part of on-boarding an enterprise to use DealWall. For more information on Deal Workflow click here.

A typical stage template for a deal in products and services may have following stages

Qualify Opportunity
Value Proposition
Pilot
Solution Proposal
Contract

whereas a deal doing Contract renewal may have following stages

Existing Contract Validation
Contract Renewal
Customer Signoff

The Stage Template defines for each stage

name
sequence number
completion %
typical duration in days

When stages are added to a deal, each stage in the deal has

start date - date this stage is estimated to start
close date - date this stage is estimated to close
state -
- In Progress - deal is in this stage
- Future - future stages deal will be in
- Completed - stage marked complete
- Skipped - stage marked skipped
original close date - during the deal life cycle you may move the stage close dates - in which case the original close date is recorded here for tracking purpose.
actual close date - the date when the stage is marked complete is recorded here for tracking purpose. This may be different from the estimated close date.

Auto Provisioning Stages in a Deal:

When you create a deal using the Add Deal form, you have to select the Stage Template to use for this deal. Based on the Stage Template you select the stages are added to a deal.

Stage 1 starts from the "Created Date" specified in the Add Deal form. Its estimated close date will be start date plus the duration specified in the Stage Template.

Stage 2 starts from close Date of Stage 1 and Stage 2 close date will be start date plus duration specified in template.

Similarly it will do for all other stages. This is what you see in the Stages form on clicking the "Stage" field in "Add Deal" Form.

Changing Stage Timelines:

You can override the stage timelines as suggested by the system. You can modify the End Date of a stage in InProgress state or Future state. The Start Date and End Date of the subsequent stages is adjusted automatically.

System will automatically move the Start Dates of the the tasks associated with the stages whose Start Date have changed.

if you modify the stage End Date system will warn you if the tasks associated with that stage don't fit in the allocated time. You can manually adjust the stage or task dates.

Marking Stage Complete:

You can mark only the stage in InProgress state as Complete. To mark a stage complete

in the Edit Deal form click on Stages field
the Stages form appears
click on the button for the InProgress Stage
system will check if all the tasks associated with this stage are marked complete. If not it will prompt you the tasks still incomplete and give option to mark all of them complete.
if the estimated end date for this stage was in the past it will prompt if you want to change the end date to today - answer as required.
if you changed the end date while marking the stage complete, system will update the dates of the subsequent stages and tasks.
click on Save in the Stages form
click on Save in the Edit Deal form.

Marking Stage Skipped:

You can mark only the stage in InProgress state as Skipped. To mark a stage complete

in the Edit Deal form click on Stages field
the Stages form appears
click on the button for the InProgress Stage
system automatically reduces the duration of this system to 0
the subsequent stages and tasks are moved up in time.
click on Save in the Stages form
Click on Save in the Edit Deal form.

Marking Deal Closed:

You can mark the deal Closed - Won / Lost / No Decision from the Stages form. To mark the deal Closed

in the Edit Deal form Workflow tab
Select the appropriate close option
if the deal estimated close date was in the past, it will prompt if you want to change it to today. Answer as required. This date is recorded as actual deal close date.

Working with the Deal Stages