CRM Administrator — CRM guide

1Check what your sign-in can do #

Where Your name, top right » Profile

1. Open your company's address in the browser — it looks like yourcompany.tarleaks.com.
2. Type the e-mail address your administrator set up for you, then your password.
3. You land on the app launcher: a grid of the apps your company uses.
4. Click the CRM tile.
5. Click your name in the very top-right corner of the screen.
6. Choose Profile from the menu that drops down.
7. Scroll to the roles and access section.

You should see It says CRM Administrator. You shape the process: stages, fields, routing, scoring, approval thresholds, teams and territories.

Watch out Two people can have the same job title and different roles here. If the chip is not what you expected, sort that out before you start changing how the team sells.

Worth knowing You are not on the approval list for deals. That is deliberate — the person who sets the threshold should not be the person who waives it.

2Shape the pipeline and its stages #

Where CRM Admin » Pipelines

1. Open the pipelines configuration screen.
2. Click the arrow at the left of a pipeline to open its stages.
3. Use the up and down arrows on a stage to move it.
4. Click Edit on a stage to change what it means.

You should see Each stage carries a name, a win probability and whether it counts as won or lost — which is what makes the forecast add up.

Watch out Changing a stage's win probability changes every forecast that includes a deal sitting in it — including the one your board saw last week. Make the change at the start of a period, not the middle. The six configuration screens are not in the left menu. Reach them from the address bar, or press the search key and start typing the name.

Worth knowing This screen is not in the left menu. Type its address, or use the search box at the top and start typing the name.

3Add the fields your business actually needs #

Where CRM Admin » Custom fields

1. Open the custom-fields screen.
2. Choose the record type at the top: Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity.
3. Read the existing fields before adding one — the thing you want may be there already.

You should see Anything the product did not ship with — a licence number, a fleet size, a regulator reference — lives here rather than in the description box.

Watch out A field on Lead is not a field on Opportunity. If you want the answer to survive a conversion, add it to both.

4Add a field to a record type #

Where CRM Admin » Custom fields » New field

1. Choose the record type first.
2. Click New field.
3. Fill the key and the label, then save.

You should see The key never changes once the field exists, so a report written against it keeps working. The label can be reworded whenever you like.

Watch out Pick the key carefully. Everything written against it later — reports, imports, integrations — uses the key, not the label.

Worth knowing Write the key in lower case with underscores — trade_licence_no, not 'Trade Licence No'. It is the name the machine uses, not the one people read.

5Decide where a new lead lands #

Where CRM Admin » Lead routing

1. Open the lead-routing screen.
2. Read the rules from the top down.
3. Use the arrows to move a rule up or down.
4. Switch a rule off rather than deleting it while you are testing.

You should see A lead is assigned by rule, not by whoever notices it first — so nobody has to police the queue.

Watch out A rule that matches everything must be last. Put it anywhere else and every rule beneath it is dead — and nothing warns you, because nothing is broken.

Worth knowing Order is the policy. A broad rule sitting above a specific one will swallow every lead the specific one was written for.

6Decide what a lead is worth #

Where CRM Admin » Lead scoring

1. Open the lead-scoring screen.
2. Read each rule's points.
3. Use Deactivate to try the model without a rule before deleting it.

You should see The score a rep sees on a lead is the sum of these rules. There is no hidden part to it.

Watch out Scores only mean something relative to each other. Adding a rule worth 200 points makes every other rule irrelevant.

7Set the discount that needs a signature #

Where CRM Admin » Approval matrix

1. Open the approval-matrix screen.
2. Read each row as one sentence.
3. Click Add threshold to add a tier.

You should see A quote whose discount goes past the lowest threshold here cannot be sent until somebody with the named role has decided on it.

Watch out The LOWEST discount threshold you set here is the gate. A quote above it cannot be sent until it has been approved, and the send button says so.

Worth knowing Lower the threshold and more quotes stop for a signature; raise it and fewer do. It takes effect on the next quote, not on ones already sent.

8Fix the list of reasons a deal is lost #

Where CRM Admin » Lost reasons

1. Open the lost-reasons screen.
2. Add the reasons your business really loses on.
3. Deactivate anything nobody is choosing.

You should see A short fixed list is what makes 'why we lose' a number at the end of the quarter instead of forty different sentences.

Watch out Do not include 'Other'. Everything ends up in it, and then you know nothing.

9Add a reason a deal can be lost #

Where CRM Admin » Lost reasons » Add reason

1. Click Add reason.
2. Type it and save.

You should see Short and few. A list of twenty reasons is a list nobody reads to the bottom of, so everything ends up under the first plausible one.

Watch out Write it as a rep would say it out loud — 'Price', 'Went with incumbent', 'No budget this year'. Not a category name.

10Keep teams and territories straight #

Where CRM » Teams, and CRM » Territories

1. Open Sales teams and expand a team to see its members.
2. Then open Territories and read the priority beside each one.

You should see Team decides whose deals a manager can see. Territory decides where a new record is sent. They answer different questions — do not use one for the other.

Watch out Adding somebody to a team changes what their manager can see. Adding a territory changes where new records go. Doing one and forgetting the other is the usual cause of 'I cannot see my own rep's deals'.

11Check the territory rules before a real record hits them #

Where CRM » Territories

1. Open Territories.
2. Click Audit expressions to check every rule at once.
3. Read the report: rules that cannot be understood, and rules that can never match because something above them always does.

You should see A rule that cannot be understood, or one sitting underneath a catch-all that will always match first, is named — before a lead disappears into it.

Watch out A shadowed rule is not an error — nothing is broken and nothing warns you. It simply never fires, and the leads it was written for go somewhere else.

Worth knowing A rule of just 'true' matches everything. Anything below it is dead, and the check is what tells you.

12Build the forms that bring leads in #

Where CRM » Lead Forms

1. In the left menu, click Lead Forms.
2. Open a form to see the fields it asks for.
3. Use the embed option and give the code to whoever looks after the website.

You should see A lead that arrives from a form is complete and goes straight to the routing rules — nobody re-types an enquiry out of an inbox.

Watch out Every extra box on a form costs you leads. Ask for the two or three things you cannot start without, and get the rest on the first call.

Worth knowing Ask for as few fields as you can live with. Every extra box costs you leads, and most of what you want can be asked on the first call.

13Keep the catalogue and its prices in order #

Where CRM » Products, and CRM » Price Books

1. Open Products and read the categories.
2. Then open Price Books.
3. Open a book to see its entries: one price per product, per currency.

You should see A rep puts a product on a quote and the price comes from the book. Nobody types a price from memory.

Watch out Archive a product rather than deleting it. Deals and quotes that already reference it must keep working.

14Let customers book their own time #

Where CRM » Booking Pages

1. In the left menu, click Booking Pages.
2. Open a page to see its title, who it books with, and the slot length.
3. Copy its link and put it in the team's e-mail signature.

You should see A slot somebody books becomes a meeting on the right record. The back-and-forth about times never reaches anybody's inbox.

Watch out A booking page pointing at somebody who has left keeps taking bookings. Deactivate it the day they go, not the day somebody notices.

15Tidy a batch of records at once #

Where CRM » Leads

1. Open Leads.
2. Tick the rows you want to deal with — or tick the header box to take everything currently on screen.
3. Use the bar that appears at the bottom.

You should see Removing records in a batch is offered to this role and to nobody who sells — which is what stops a bad afternoon becoming a lost quarter.

Watch out Filter FIRST, then tick the header box. It selects the rows you are looking at, and the rows you are looking at are whatever the filter left.

16See the whole company's book #

Where CRM » Leads, and CRM » Opportunities

1. Open Leads and read the count in the line under the title.
2. Open Opportunities and read the same line.

You should see You are not scoped to an owner. These two numbers are the whole company's, which is why a rep's shorter list is proof that ownership is working rather than proof that something is missing.

Watch out These two numbers are the yardstick. When a rep tells you records are missing, compare their count with yours before assuming anything is broken — a smaller list is the system working.

17Salaries are not yours to see #

Where The left menu

1. Open the launcher and read the tiles.
2. Payroll is not among them for this sign-in.

You should see Setting up how the company sells is not a reason to see what anybody is paid, so the whole area is closed rather than merely hidden.

Watch out This is a refusal, not a hidden menu. Typing the address gets the same answer.