Manage your pipeline

Manage Your Pipeline

The Pipeline gives your team a visual way to track leads as they move through different stages of the sales process. Each lead appears as a card in the column that represents its current stage, making it easier to understand what needs attention and where opportunities stand.

What is the Pipeline?

The Pipeline is a visual sales workspace where leads are displayed as cards across stage-based columns.

Each column represents a stage in your sales process. As a lead progresses, your team can move the card to the appropriate stage.

The Pipeline helps teams understand the current state of opportunities, prioritize follow-up, and track progress from initial interest through won or lost outcomes.

Why use the Pipeline?

The Pipeline helps you:

• See your leads and opportunities at a glance.
• Track where each lead is in the sales process.
• Quickly update a lead's stage.
• Filter leads by useful criteria.
• Keep sales activity organized.
• Track won and lost outcomes accurately.
• Support reporting and win-rate analysis.

Real-Life Use Case

The situation

Imagine UrbanNest Realty has many active property enquiries. Some prospects are newly contacted, some have scheduled appointments, and others have received quotations.

The problem

Without a visual pipeline, the sales team may struggle to understand which leads are new, which need follow-up, and which are close to a purchase.

What happens without the feature?

The team may:

• Track lead stages manually.
• Spend time searching for the status of individual prospects.
• Miss leads that require follow-up.
• Have difficulty seeing the overall sales process.
• Maintain inconsistent information about won and lost opportunities.

How Vaanexa helps

Vaanexa's Pipeline displays leads as cards organized into columns according to their stage.

Team members can move cards between columns as leads progress and use filters to focus on specific groups of leads.

The new workflow

New lead → Qualification → Appointment → Quotation → Won/Lost

The exact stages can be customized to match the business's sales process.

Case Study

Business

UrbanNest Realty

Challenge

UrbanNest has leads at different points in its sales process and needs a simple way to see which prospects are new, active, close to conversion, or no longer progressing.

Objective

Create a visual sales process that makes lead progress easy to understand and update.

Vaanexa Solution

UrbanNest uses the Pipeline to display leads as cards in columns representing sales stages.

The team can drag cards between columns, open individual leads for more information, and filter the board by owner, source, tag, or score.

Outcome

The sales team gets a clearer view of active opportunities and can update lead stages as prospects move through the sales process.

How the Pipeline works

The Pipeline is organized into columns, with each column representing a stage.

1. Leads appear as cards in their current stage.
2. Team members review the cards on the board.
3. A lead progresses through the sales process.
4. The team moves the lead card to the appropriate stage.
5. Filters can be used to focus on specific leads.
6. Won and lost stages provide the basis for relevant reporting and win-rate calculations.
7. Automations can also move leads between stages when configured conditions are met.

Before you begin

Before managing your Pipeline:

• Make sure your leads are available in Vaanexa.
• Define the stages your sales process requires.
• Decide which stages represent won and lost outcomes.
• Make sure your team understands what each stage means.
• Review your stage configuration in Settings.

How to manage your Pipeline

Use the board

1. Open Pipeline.
2. Review the lead cards displayed in the stage columns.
3. Drag a card to another column to change its stage.
4. Click a card to open the lead.
5. Review the lead information and continue any required follow-up.
6. Use filters to narrow the board by owner, source, tag, or score.

Change a lead's stage

1. Find the lead card on the Pipeline board.
2. Drag the card to the appropriate stage column.
3. Release the card to update the lead's stage.
4. Continue managing the lead based on its new stage.

Filter the Pipeline

Use the available filters to focus on specific leads.

You can filter by:

• Owner
• Source
• Tag
• Score

Filtering is useful when a team member wants to focus only on their leads or when a manager wants to review leads from a particular source or with a particular score.

Customize stages

1. Open Settings.
2. Find the Pipeline stage configuration.
3. Change stage names as needed.
4. Change the stage order when required.
5. Mark the stages that represent won and lost outcomes.
6. Save the configuration.

Understanding the feature

Best practices

1. Use meaningful stage names
   Make each stage easy for the entire team to understand.

2. Keep stages in a logical order
   Arrange stages to reflect how leads actually progress through your sales process.

3. Define won and lost stages correctly
   Accurate stage configuration is important for reporting and win-rate calculations.

4. Update stages promptly
   Move leads when their status changes so the Pipeline reflects the current sales situation.

5. Use filters regularly
   Filter by owner, source, tag, or score when focusing on specific groups of leads.

6. Automate predictable stage changes
   Use Automations when a lead should move stages after a known event, such as an appointment being booked or a quotation being accepted.

Common scenarios

Reviewing active opportunities

A sales manager opens the Pipeline to see how many leads are currently progressing through each stage.

Updating a lead after an appointment

A sales representative moves a lead card to the appropriate next stage after an appointment is booked or completed.

Reviewing leads by owner

A manager filters the Pipeline by owner to review the leads assigned to a particular team member.

Tracking campaign performance

A team filters leads by source to understand how leads from a particular channel or campaign are progressing.

Automating stage changes

An automation moves a lead to another stage after an appointment is booked or a quotation is accepted.

Common mistakes

Using too many stages

A Pipeline with unnecessary stages can make the sales process harder to understand.

Using unclear stage names

Team members should know exactly what each stage represents.

Forgetting to mark won and lost stages

Incorrect configuration can affect reporting and win-rate calculations.

Leaving leads in outdated stages

If a lead progresses but its card is not moved, the Pipeline no longer reflects the actual sales process.

Ignoring filters

Large Pipelines can become difficult to review without using filters to focus on relevant leads.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Pipeline?

The Pipeline is a visual board that displays leads as cards organized into columns representing different sales stages.

How do I change a lead's stage?

Drag the lead card to another stage column on the Pipeline board.

What filters are available?

You can use filters for owner, source, tag, and score.

Can I customize Pipeline stages?

Yes. Stage names and their order can be changed in Settings.

Why do I need to mark won and lost stages?

Marking these stages allows Vaanexa to use the correct outcomes for reporting and win-rate calculations.

Can Automations move leads between stages?

Yes. Automations can move leads between stages when configured events occur, such as an appointment being booked or a quotation being accepted.

Related concepts

• Leads and Customers
• Capture leads with lead forms
• Automations
• Appointments
• Quotations
• Tasks
• Analytics
• Using the Unified Inbox
• Marketing campaigns