What to do first
Add a lead, or import a list of them from a file. Anybody can do either. Then open one and log a call. That is the act that moves a pipeline, and it is what the whole module is built around.
Board and table
Two views of the same records.
Board shows the pipeline as columns, one per stage, so you can see where things sit and drag a card along as it moves.
Table shows the same leads as rows, so you can scan, sort and work through a list.
The table has four filters: open, gone quiet, closed won, and everything.
Moving many leads at once. Tick the leads in the table, or tick the box in the header for every lead shown, then choose Move to stage. Each lead moves exactly as if it had been dragged: its history records the move, and anything it points at in Inventory is reserved or released. Moving them to Lost asks for one reason, which is recorded on each lead. Anything that could not be moved is named and stays ticked.
Expanding. Both views have a link to a full-width page, Expand board or Expand table, without the source report and side panels beside them. Back to leads returns you to the same view.
Stages
Six to begin with: New, Contacted, Qualified, Offer sent, Closed won and Lost. Won and lost are outcomes rather than stages, so a lead in either is no longer live.
A workspace can rename these, reorder them and add its own. A sales director who wants Documentation between Negotiation and Closed is describing how the company works, and Builder is where that is said. Every stage a workspace adds still behaves as one of the six underneath, so the reporting holds.
Opening a lead
The drawer shows everything known about the lead and puts logging a call first.
Choose an outcome: connected, no answer, left message, site visit booked, or not interested. Rople starts the note for you and you edit it before saving. The note matters more than it looks: six weeks later, when somebody is working out why a deal went cold, that log is the only thing there is to read, and a log where every entry reads the same says nothing.
Two of the outcomes, no answer and left message, do not reset the silence clock. Nobody reached anybody, so the lead has not actually been spoken to.
Moving a lead to Lost asks for a reason before it will save. A source can only be judged on the revenue it closed if the closes that went the other way say why.
What has gone quiet
A lead nobody has spoken to in a week appears in the gone quiet filter and raises a follow up in that person's My Work. Nobody has to remember to check.
Where the book sits
A panel shows who is holding what: every person on the sales roster, including the ones holding nothing. "Nobody has given Amaka anything this month" is one of the most useful things a manager can learn from this screen, and it is invisible if the panel is built only from leads that exist.
Alongside it: what is unowned, what has gone quiet, and what is overdue.
Sources and attribution
Which sources produce closed revenue, counted from your own leads rather than from lead volume. A channel that generates a hundred enquiries and no sales is not a good channel, and counting volume hides that.
Who holds a lead
Anybody who can open Leads can add a lead or import a file of them. What your seat decides is who ends up holding them.
- Team members. A lead you add is yours, and there is no owner to choose. A file you import is all yours: every lead in it joins your follow-up queue, and an owner column in the file is ignored.
- Managers and above. When you add a lead you choose who holds it, or keep it yourself. When you import a file you are asked the same question: choose who should own every lead in it (it starts as you), or tick Assign these leads automatically to share it across the sales team. Shared out, an owner column you map is honoured for anybody it names in the workspace, and the rest follow your workspace's assignment rules where it has any, and otherwise go in turn around the team, starting with somebody different each time so nobody is always first.
Everybody who is handed leads is told, once, with the count.
Importing
Bring in a file of leads rather than typing them. Rople maps the columns and tells you what it could not read before anything is written. Before you choose the file, the sheet says whether the leads will be yours, or, for a manager, asks who should own them.
Converting a won lead
Closing a lead won is how a client account is opened. The account carries the lead with it, which is what keeps attribution whole: an account with no lead behind it is revenue with no source.
Converting is also what takes the inventory the lead pointed at out of availability.
How it connects
- A lead points at an Inventory line, which is what holds and then releases availability.
- Winning a lead opens an account in Clients and accounts.
- The organisation behind a lead is tracked in Relationships.
- Follow ups and gone quiet leads arrive in My Work.
- Closed revenue feeds Finance and Insights.
Common questions
Who gets a new lead? Assignment rules live in Builder. Without a rule, a lead stays unowned and appears in the unowned count until somebody takes it.
Can I move a lead backwards? Yes. A pipeline is not one way, and the history keeps the fact that it moved.
Why does the pipeline number not match what I sold? Pipeline is what is open. Closed revenue is in Finance, and the two are meant to differ.