Pipeline

Pipeline is for the work that has not happened yet. A deal is one opportunity: a title, the contact it belongs to, what it is worth, when you expect it to close, and which stage it is sitting in. A pipeline is your set of stages, in the order you actually work them.

If your business involves conversations before money changes hands (client projects, sponsorships, bookings, retainers), this is where you stop keeping them in your head.

Where to find the pipeline

Open Operations then Pipeline in the sidebar.

At the top you get a pipeline picker (you can have more than one) and a New deal button. Four tabs sit underneath: Board, List, Forecast and Settings.

Your first pipeline

If you have never made one, the page asks for a name. Type something like "Sales" and click Create pipeline. Then head to Settings to shape your stages.

Stages

Open the Settings tab to edit the stages for the pipeline you are looking at.

Each stage has:

• A Name, such as "Discovery", "Proposal sent", "Won".
• A Kind: Open, Won or Lost. Won and Lost are the ends of the road.
• A Prob % - how likely a deal in this stage is to close, as a percentage. Won stages are locked at 100 and Lost stages at 0, so you only set this on Open stages.
• Rot days - how long a deal is allowed to sit here before it counts as stale. Leave it blank and deals never go stale in that stage.

Click the grip handle on a row to move that stage up the order. Click Add stage to add another, the trash icon to remove one, and Save stages to commit. Nothing saves until you press that button, and you must keep at least one Open stage.

Creating a deal

1. Click New deal.
2. Give it a Title, such as "Website redesign for Acme Co."
3. Pick the Contact it belongs to. Start typing a name or email and choose from the results. Every deal belongs to exactly one contact.
4. Enter the Value.
5. Optionally set an Expected close date.
6. Pick the Stage it starts in. Only Open stages are offered, so you cannot create a deal that is already won or lost.
7. Click Create deal.

The board

The Board tab is a column per stage, and deals are cards you drag between them.

Each column header shows the stage name, how many deals are in it, that stage's raw total, and a weighted figure beside it. Weighted means the value adjusted for how likely the deal is to close.

Each card shows:

• The deal title.
• The contact's name.
• The value.
• How many days the deal has been sitting in this stage, next to a clock. When that number turns red, the deal has been in that stage longer than its rot days allow. That is your cue to chase it or kill it.
• A warning triangle if an invoice linked to the deal has already been paid but the deal is still open.

Drag a card into another column to move the deal. Drop it into a Won stage and the deal is won. Drop it into a Lost stage and TribeNest asks you why first.

The list

The List tab is the same deals as a table: Deal, Contact, Stage, Status, Value and Expected close. Status reads Open, Won or Lost. Click any row to open the deal.

Working a deal

Click any card or row to open the deal panel.

The fields

Everything here saves as soon as you click away, so there is no Save button to hunt for:

• Title
• Value, labelled with the deal's currency.
• Probability % - the odds for this particular deal. Leave it blank and it uses the stage's default, which is shown greyed out as a hint.
• Expected close
• Stage - a dropdown of every stage, each labelled with its kind so you know which ones end the deal.

Underneath, a Weighted value line shows the value adjusted by whichever probability is in play.

If a linked invoice has been paid while the deal is still open, a highlighted box appears saying so, with a Mark as won button to close it out in one click.

Won and lost deals show their stage as plain text with a Reopen button, which drops the deal back into your first open stage.

Linked records

The Linked records section is where a deal connects to the rest of your business. It lists the proposals and contracts, invoices, coaching bookings and orders attached to this deal, and you can unlink any of them.

Click Convert to invoice to raise an invoice straight from the deal, with the value already filled in.

Activity

Add a note any time. Type into the box and click Add note. Below, the activity feed keeps a running history of the deal: notes you wrote, stage changes, and when each happened.

Marking a deal won or lost

Won happens three ways: drag the card into a Won column, pick a Won stage in the deal panel, or click Mark as won on the paid-invoice nudge.

Lost always asks why first. The dialog offers four one-click reasons (Price, Timing, Went elsewhere, No response) and a box you can type anything into instead. The reason is optional, but it is worth recording: it rolls straight up into your forecast.

Forecast

The Forecast tab turns the board into numbers.

Pipeline value by stage

One bar per stage, showing both the raw total sitting there and the weighted total beside it, with the deal count. This is where you see whether your pipeline is top-heavy with early conversations or genuinely close to closing.

Expected close

Your open deals grouped by the month you expect them to land, each row showing the total, the weighted total, and how many deals make it up. Deals with no close date are grouped separately as Unscheduled, which is a useful list to go and fix.

Performance

Pick a From and To date, and you get four numbers for that window:

• Win rate - the percentage of closed deals you won.
• Won - how many you closed.
• Lost - how many you did not.
• Avg cycle - how long a deal takes to close on average.

Under that, Lost reasons counts up every reason you recorded, so you find out whether you keep losing on price or keep losing to silence.

Common patterns

• Keep the stages few. Four or five is plenty. A pipeline with eleven stages is a pipeline nobody updates.
• Set rot days honestly. If your discovery calls normally convert within a fortnight, set 14. The red day counter is only useful if it means something.
• Let probability do the maths. Set a sensible percentage per stage once, and the weighted forecast tells you what to expect without you guessing.
• Close the loop. Send a proposal from the deal, link it, and convert the accepted one straight into an invoice.

Related

• Contacts - every deal belongs to one
• Documents - the proposals and contracts a deal runs on
• Invoices - what a won deal becomes
• Automations - react automatically when a deal moves