Creating and managing opportunities

You can create a new parent opportunity by using one of the following methods:

• Within the Opportunities tab of an entity's detail or account plan detail page, click the Add button 

  

  in the data table toolbar. The new opportunity is automatically associated with the entity.
• Within the Opportunities workspace, click the Add button in the data table toolbar.

When adding a parent opportunity from a data table Add button, you immediately specify the opportunity template to use. If you accidentally select the wrong template, you can change it later.

Regardless of the method you use to create the opportunity, NexJ CRM then opens the New Parent Opportunity window, which has the following tabs and key controls:

Tab	Fields and radio buttons	Description	Required field
Detail	Template	The opportunity template. This value defines which other fields are visible for the opportunity. You can change the template at any time, but doing so may overwrite values that you have entered elsewhere.	Yes
	For	The list of entities assigned to the opportunity. As you type the name of the entity you want to add to the opportunity in the For field, a list of corresponding entities appears below the field. Select the desired entity when you see their name appear in the list below the For field. You can also click the Select button and select from a list of entities. If the target entity does not exist, you can click the Add a new item button  in the Select an entity dialog, enter the entity information in the New Contact dialog, and save your changes to add the required entity.	Yes
	Stage	The stage that the opportunity has achieved. As an opportunity is pursued, it progresses through defined stages, which are steps in the life cycle of an opportunity. For example, an opportunity for life insurance might progress through the qualification, application, underwriting, present policy, and close stages.	Yes
	Reporting	This field only applies to product opportunities. It determines if a product opportunity is included in the pipeline charts on the Home workspace, provided it meets the criteria for inclusion. A product opportunity can be included in the charts if it is open, meaning that an outcome is not specified in the Outcome field, and its Expected Amount field contains a value. To include a product opportunity in the charts, select Pipeline. If you select Forecast, the product opportunity is not included in the charts. For more information about opportunity pipeline charts, see Visualizing your sales pipeline.	Yes
	Currency and Expected amount	Use these fields to record the estimated worth of closing the deals that the opportunity contains. The Expected amount value should be specified in the currency that you have selected in the Currency field.	Yes
	Probability	The chance that the opportunity will be won at the current stage, represented by a percentage , with a number between 0 and 100.  For example, in an opportunity's first stage, the probability that the opportunity will be won might be 10%, so you would enter 10 in the field. By the last stage, the probability might increase to 95%, so you would enter 95 for this stage. When adding an opportunity, you can override a stage's probability if it has been set by a business administrator. This is useful when there are unique circumstances of an opportunity. For example, if there is only one competitor for an opportunity, the chance that you will win the opportunity might be higher.	No
Products	Not applicable	Summarizes the products that you have added to the opportunity. All opportunities must have at least one product. If there are no products in the list, you can add them by clicking the Add button and selecting a Type of product. Parent opportunities can have multiple products associated with them. Product opportunities can also have multiple products in the list, but the recommended practice is to have only one product per product opportunity.	Yes
Team	Not applicable	Lists all of the users that make up the opportunity team. Every user in this list must have a specified role. There must be at least one user listed, who is usually the opportunity owner. To add users to the list, click the Add button and select User or Coverage Group. In the New Coverage User dialog, select a user and their coverage role. To add or edit the role for a user, double-click in the Role column for that user or click the Edit button  and select a role from the drop-down menu.	Yes
Contacts	Not applicable	Additional contacts or companies associated with the opportunity. By default, every opportunity is associated with a contact or company specified in the For field of the Detail tab. However, you can specify additional contacts and companies related to the opportunity in the Contacts tab.  To select an entity, click the Add button. To add or edit the role for an entity, double-click in the Role column for the entity or click the Edit button and select a role from the drop-down menu. The Role values are not mandatory for this information. If the target entity does not exist, you can click the Add a new item button in the Select an entity dialog, enter the entity information in the New Contact dialog, and save your changes to add the required entity.	Not applicable
Security	Public, Group, Private	Defines the view and edit security settings for the opportunity. If your organization uses the Hierarchical security model, this tab will not be available. For more information, see 7667887.	Yes

Adding a product to a parent opportunity

After you create a parent opportunity, you can add one or more products to that opportunity. Each product represents a sale that you hope to qualify and pursue with the contact or company associated with the opportunity. Not all of the products that you include will necessarily go beyond an initial investigation stage with the associated contact or company.

When adding a product to a parent opportunity, you must specify at least the type of product. Specifying the product name and description are optional. However, if you qualify a parent opportunity product by using it to create a product opportunity, the description becomes the name of the product opportunity.

You can add products to a parent opportunity by:

• Opening the details for an existing parent opportunity, and clicking the Add button on the Products card of the Detail tab, or
• Accessing the details of a parent opportunity either through the Opportunities workspace, or through the Opportunity tab of an entity in the Contacts workspace.

Available actions for products in a parent opportunity

After you add a product to an opportunity, click the expand button

• Edit product details.
• Deactivate a product from the More Actions menu

  

  .
• Activate a previously deactivated product.
• Delete a product from the More Actions menu.
• Qualify a product in a parent opportunity as a product opportunity (see 7667887).

The details of the products remain editable in the parent opportunity's detail information until the product is qualified or deactivated.

Creating a product opportunity

There are multiple ways to create a product opportunity:

• Within most of the workspaces, click the Floating Action button 

  

  and select Add Opportunity.
• Create a product opportunity as the child of an existing parent oppportunity.
  Use this method when you are able to qualify one of the products in a parent opportunity. This method maintains the relationship between the original parent opportunity and the product opportunity as it moves forward.
• Create an independent product opportunity.
  Use this method if you need to create a stand-alone product opportunity that is not associated with any parent opportunity.

Creating a product opportunity by qualifying a parent product

When you qualify a product within a parent opportunity, it indicates that the product has entered a sales cycle with the associated contact or company and is now part of your active pipeline. Qualifying a product has the following results:

• A product opportunity is created as the child of the parent opportunity.
• The original product listed under the parent opportunity is marked as progressed and is no longer editable from the parent opportunity. The product opportunity has a reciprocal link included in its banner information.
• A link to the product opportunity now appears on the Products card in the parent opportunity.
• The new product opportunity takes the name of the original product.
• The product that was previously associated with the parent opportunity now becomes associated with the product opportunity. You can open and edit the details of the product, as products within product opportunities allow you to specify additional details, such as list price, unit price, and quantity.
• The product opportunity appears in your pipeline as it goes through its own stages as designed by its organization.

To qualify a product into a product opportunity:

1. Click the More Actions button

   

   and select Create Product Opportunity.
2. Select the opportunity template for your new product opportunity.

After the new product opportunity for the parent opportunity is created, you can view it and any associated activities from the Opportunities workspace, or navigate to it from the Contacts workspace through the associated entity.

Creating an independent product opportunity

In some cases, you may want to create an independent product opportunity, not associated with any parent. There are two ways to do this:

• Navigate to the Opportunities workspace and click the Add button 

  

  in the data table tool bar. Select Product Opportunity and then select an opportunity template to use.
• Navigate to an entity's detail page and, in the Opportunities tab, click the Add button in the data table tool bar. Select Product Opportunity and then select an opportunity template. This automatically associates the opportunity with the entity.

As with parent opportunities, the New Product Opportunity window provides a number of fields, the most key of which are detailed in the following table:

As with parent opportunities, you can add any number of products to a product opportunity. However, it is recommended that you only associate a single product with each product opportunity.

When adding a product to a product opportunity, in addition to specifying the name and type of product, you can also specify additional details, such as list price, unit price, and quantity.

To add a product to a product opportunity, do one of the following:

• On the Opportunities workspace, select a product opportunity in the data table, and click the description link to navigate to the detail page for the product opportunity. In the Detail tab, on the Products card, click the Add button, and select the type of product in the New Product Opportunity dialog.
• On the Contacts workspace, select the entity associated with the product opportunity you want to add a product to, and navigate to the entity's Opportunities tab. All opportunities associated with the entity display in the data table. Select the product opportunity and click the description link to navigate to the opportunity's detail page. In the opportunity's Detail tab, on the Products card, click the Add button.

To edit or delete the product, expand the product information on the Products card and click Edit or Delete.

Editing opportunities

After you add an opportunity to the system, you can modify details and update information about the opportunity on the cards in the Detail tab or in the Edit dialog. For example, in the Edit dialog for an opportunity, you can:

• Change the stage for an opportunity to reflect the opportunity's progress.
• Enter the actual revenue amount that an opportunity has generated in the Actual Amount field.
• Enter the date when the opportunity officially closes in the Actual Close field.
• Select whether the opportunity was won or lost in the Outcome field.
• Explain why an opportunity was won or lost in the Reason field.

To edit an opportunity, navigate to the opportunity from one of the following workspaces:

• Opportunities workspace
• Contacts workspace, in the Opportunities tab of a selected entity

In a data table, hover over an opportunity record and click the Edit button

Adding activities to opportunities

You can add activities, such as tasks, schedule items, or documents, to an opportunity.

Activities can also be configured for opportunities as part of the opportunity template on the Customize workspace. You can edit and delete activities related to opportunities, whether they were added based on the opportunity template, or added to the opportunity directly.

When you add activities to an opportunity, they are added to the current stage of the opportunity.

To add new activities to a selected opportunity, navigate to the detail page for the opportunity. In the Activities tab, click the Add button 

• Schedule Item
• Task
• Document
• Call Record

Choose an activity template and enter the required information in the dialog that opens. Dialog tabs vary depending on the activity type you choose. However, when adding activities to opportunities, all new activity dialogs contain a Related tab. Use the Related tab to add related opportunities, products, service requests, and follow-up activities.

When you add an activity to an opportunity, it is automatically added to the activities for the associated contact or company. To access the activity on the Contact's workspace, navigate to the entity's Activities tab on the detail page.

After adding an activity to an opportunity, you can take any of the following actions for a selected activity from the data table on the opportunity's Activities tab:

• To modify the details of an activity, hover over the record and click the Edit 

  

  button.
• To change the status of the activity to "complete", hover over the record and click the Mark as Complete button

  

  .
• To delete the activity, click the More Actions button

  

  and select Delete.
• To send an email regarding the activity, click the More Actions button and select Email.
• To add a call record to the activity, click the More Actions button and select Add Call Record.

Managing opportunity teams

You can add, remove, or edit the roles of the users and coverage groups on an opportunity team. Team members can edit and view opportunities they are associated with.

To modify an opportunity team, navigate to the detail page for an opportunity. In the Detail tab, take one of the following actions on the Team card:

• Add a user to the team. Click the Add button 

  

  and in the New Coverage User dialog, select a user and specify a coverage role for the user in the Coverage role drop-down.

• Edit the role for a user on the team.
• Remove a user from the team.
• Add a coverage group to the team.
• Remove a whole coverage group from the team.

Specifying view and edit security for opportunities

You can restrict viewing and editing of an opportunity to a group of users or to yourself.

Coverage team members and opportunity owners can always view or edit the opportunity, regardless of the security level that you set.

To specify view and edit security for an opportunity when adding an opportunity, navigate to the Security tab in the New parent opportunity or New product opportunity dialog and select the required options.

The Security tab is not available when the Hierarchical Access Model is enabled.

When the Group Security Model is enabled by your administrator, you can define view and edit security levels for certain objects in NexJ CRM, for example, a contact' details or a task. You can make view or edit access for an object available to all users, limit them to a group of users, or only to yourself. 

To set access levels for objects, choose one of the following options for view and edit security:

• Public
  All users can view or edit the object.

• Group
  Users who are members of a particular user group can view or edit the object.

  

  This option does not apply to saved lists and filters.

• Private
  Only you can view or edit the object.

If the Hierarchical Access Model is enabled by your administrator then the Security menu option is disabled for people and companies and the Security tab is disabled for tasks, opportunities, and activities, which are secured using the Hierarchical Access Model. For other objects (for example, saved lists, service requests, and document folders), the Security tab will continue to be available.

Regardless of the security level that has been set, the following users can always view and edit activities, contacts, companies, and opportunities:

• Users assigned to an activity can always view or edit the activity.
• Coverage team members for an contact or company can always view or edit the contact or company.
• Coverage team members and opportunity owners can always view or edit the opportunity.