Pipeline View in Bigin | Online Help - Bigin by Zoho CRM

Pipelines in Bigin

Every sales cycle consists of stages, such as initial contact, prospecting, contacted, proposal, deal won, and deal lost. Mapping these stages in your Bigin account is essential to keep track of all your data. A pipeline in Bigin is an online replica of your sales cycle and the stages in it. The right sales pipeline can help you identify bottlenecks in your sales cycle and manage sales efficiently.
 
Pipelines are versatile and they can be used to manage any business process. For example, your organization might have a service department that follows a streamlined process to ensure every product is serviced properly. This process can be mapped to Bigin in addition to your sales process as we support multiple pipelines. Or, your business might have different sales stages depending on the product being sold. You can create multiple pipelines in Bigin to manage the sales cycle of each product.
 
A default pipeline is available (based on the template selected while signing up) to help you get started and the stages in the default pipeline can be edited as per your needs. Each pipeline has a set of open stages and closed stage(s). 



Availability

Adding Pipelines

There are two ways to add a pipeline to your Bigin account,
  1. Create a new pipeline from scratch.
  2. Clone an existing pipeline

To create a pipeline

  1. Go to Settings and then Pipelines and Stages.
  2. Click + New Pipeline.
  3. Enter the name of the pipeline in the first text box.

  4. Enter the open stages and closed stages that you need for the pipeline. Click on  to add more stages, and
     to delete a stage.
  5. Click Save.
Note:
  1. The maximum number of stages that you can have in a pipeline is 25, including the default stages.
  2. There must be at least 2 open stages in the pipeline.
  3. There can be up to 5 closed stages in a single pipeline and you can also create a pipeline without any closed stages at all.

To clone a pipeline

  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Hover over the pipeline you want to clone and click the more icon.

  3. Click Clone Pipeline.
  4. Enter a name for the new pipeline.

  5. Click Clone.

Editing Pipelines  

You can rename the pipeline, associate a new stage, rename the stages, replace a specific stage with a stage from another pipeline and even re-order the stages in a pipeline.

To rename a pipeline

  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Hover over the pipeline you want to rename and click the Edit icon.

  3. Enter the new name and click the  button. 

To rename a stage

Let's assume you have two pipelines – Sales and Service. Both the pipeline have the a stage 'Identification'. While renaming the stage 'Identification', you can choose if you want the name change to reflect in the current pipeline alone or in both the pipelines in the account.
  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Hover over the stage you want to rename and click the Edit icon.

  3. Enter the new name and choose,
    1. Only in this pipeline - if you want the new stage name to reflect only in this pipeline.
    2. Rename this stage in other pipelines - if you want the new stage name to reflect in all the pipelines.

  4.  Click Save.

To add a stage

  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Go to the desired pipeline and click +Stage.
  3. Choose an existing stage from the drop-down or click + New Stage and enter the stage name.

  4. Click .

To replace a stage

You can replace a specific stage in a pipeline with any other stage from a different pipeline
  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Hover over the stage you want to replace and click the more icon.
  3. Click Replace Stage.

  4. Select the stage you want to replace with from the drop-down.

  5. Click Replace.

To reorder stages in a pipeline

  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Go to the desired pipeline and simply drag and drop the stage to reorder stages in that pipeline.

Working with pipelines

Bigin has many features to make managing your pipelines easier. These features help sales reps view and navigate the pipeline with ease without disrupting their busy schedule. 

Collapsing or Expanding Columns

Organize the sales pipeline by collapsing or expanding columns to suit your preference. This helps you view the important stages in your sales cycle and collapse the stages that do not need your attention. Each column represents a stage in the pipeline.
To collapse or expand columns
  1. Go to the Deals modules.
  2. Choose the desired pipeline from the dropdown.
  3. Click the Collapse icon at the bottom of the column.
    Alternatively, click on the more icon and then select Collapse stage to collapse a column.
  4. Click on the column if you want to expand it again.
 

Resizing Columns in a Pipeline

To resize columns
  1. Go to Deals modules.
  2. Choose the desired pipeline from the dropdown.
  3. Move your mouse pointer to the boundary of the column.
  4. Drag and resize the column to the desired width.

Reordering Stages in a Pipeline

Reorder stages in a deal effortlessly using the drag and drop feature.
To reorder stages
  1. Go to Deals modules.
  2. Choose the desired pipeline from the dropdown.
  3. Drag the stage column you want to reorder and drop it in the desired location.

Adding a Stage to a Pipeline

You can add a stage to a pipeline directly from the pipeline view.
To add a stage to a pipeline
  1. Go to the Deals modules.
  2. Choose the desired pipeline from the dropdown.
  3. Move your mouse pointer to the stage after which you want to add a new stage.
  4. Click the More icon and select New Stage from the dropdown list.
  5. Enter a name for the stage and click Save.
     

Deleting a Pipeline

  1. Go to Settings > Pipeline and Stages.
  2. Hover over the pipeline you want to clone and click the more icon.

  3. Click Delete.
  4. Select the pipeline and stage to which you want to transfer the records of the deleted pipeline.

  5. Click Delete.

Choosing a Pipeline When a Deal is Created  

If you have multiple pipelines for different business processes carried out in your organization, you will need to choose the appropriate pipeline for each particular deal.
 
Let's say you own a technology company which sells mobile phones, laptops, and personal computers. You handle both B2B and B2C sales, so you have two different sales processes. You will need to select the appropriate pipeline when creating a deal.
 
To choose the appropriate pipeline while creating a deal
  1. Log in to Bigin and select the Deals module.
  2. Click Create Deal.
  3. Select the appropriate pipeline for the deal in the pipeline dropdown.
  4. Fill in the other details and click Save.