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Team: View Pipelines and Manage Pipelines
Reading time | 8 min |
Setup length | 5 min |
Steps | 3 |
I/ Why manage your opportunity pipeline?
Your sales pipeline is the engine of your business: it represents every opportunity in progress, from prospecting through to signature. Managing it rigorously lets you:
Forecast future revenue with precise financial indicators;
Prioritize the most promising opportunities and allocate your resources efficiently;
Spot blockers or at-risk opportunities so you can act quickly;
Align your business development actions with your annual or quarterly turnover targets.
With OOTI, this becomes intuitive and collaborative, thanks to features designed to simplify your day-to-day work.
II/ Create an opportunity
Go to the Opportunities menu on the left > Summary tab, then click the + Create an opportunity button.
Fill out the form with all the information available: the more information, the better.
💡 All the information filled in is not final, you can always complete or modify all of this.
You can enter a Title, select the Team (entity), Stage, Client, Language, VAT Rate, and Project Currency. Click on Save.
💡 Click here to read the article on opportunity stages.
You have created your opportunity! 🎉
II/ Complete the opportunity
Click on your opportunity from opportunities > opportunities > Table or Stages tabs to access more details.
You will find several tabs, to be completed if necessary to bring your opportunity to life, such as information, notes, tasks, etc.
1) Informations tab
The more info, the better! Enter the Project ID, City, select the Country, the Opportunity Members, and Tags. Click on Save.
💡 Add members to your opportunity so that they have access to the project and can log time against it.
2) Contacts tab
Add all the contacts from the opportunity to ensure that you can easily reach out via phone, email, lunch, etc., and increase your chances of closing the deal. This will also populate your CRM.
Click on the + Add contact button to build your contacts database.
You can add as many contacts as you want. To edit them, click on the options "..."> Edit. To remove them, click on the options "..."> Remove from list.
3) Notes tab
Add notes to the opportunity or share additional details.
Click on the + New note button to add one. Choose whether this note should be visible to everyone, kept private, etc. Click on Save.
To edit it, click on the options "..." > Edit. To delete it, click on the options "..." > Delete.
4) Tasks tab
Add to-do lists.
Click the + Task button.
To edit it, click on the options "..." > Edit. To delete it, click on the options "..." > Delete.
5) Fees tab
Click on the Add Fee button to add fees and phases to your opportunity.
💡 Click here to read the article on adding fees and phases to your deals.
Add fees and phases in advance that can be used in your fee proposals.
We invite you to create a fictitious phase, for example, "competition" or "feasibility," where team members can allocate hours.
If your opportunity is lost, you can assign an amount to this phase, which will represent the competition fees that you can then invoice.
💡 Click here to read the article on actions to take if an opportunity is won or lost.
6) Time tab
Follow the time spent on this opportunity.
Opportunity members can already log time on it.
💡 We recommend systematically logging time spent on an opportunity, as this lets you calculate its profitability as early as the competition phase. Even once the opportunity is won and turned into a project, the hours logged during the "opportunity" phase remain included in the overall cost of the deal. This lets you check whether the negotiated fees are enough to cover the entire competition and qualification period, on top of the upcoming production work.
IV/ Track and analyze your opportunities
1) Total fees and weighted fees
In the Opportunities > Opportunities menu, the Table view displays, for each opportunity:
the total fees: the fee amount entered on the opportunity;
the weighted fees: this same amount, multiplied by the probability rate of winning the opportunity.
This indicator gives you a realistic view of your pipeline, by weighting each deal against its actual probability of closing, rather than adding up every amount as if it were equally certain.
Concrete example: for an opportunity with €10,000 in fees and a 50% probability of closing, the weighted fees are:
€10,000 x 50% = €5,000
💡 Remember to update the probability rate of your opportunities regularly: the more reliable it is, the more your weighted fees reflect the reality of your business development activity.
2) Win rate from the Summary tab
Go to Opportunities > Summary to see, at a glance:
the number of opportunities won;
the number of opportunities lost;
the number of active opportunities.
This view lets you track your win rate over time and quickly spot whether your pipeline is healthy or needs corrective action.
V/ Forecast your turnover with the "Opportunities turnover" module
To go further in the financial management of your pipeline, activate the "Opportunities turnover" module from Settings > Modules > General.
⚠️ The features described in this section are only available if this module is activated.
Once activated, this module enriches your agency billing schedule (Invoices > Schedule menu) by adding opportunity turnover projections, alongside the turnover projections of your already-signed projects. Both types of projection remain clearly distinguished from one another.
The module also lets you distinguish, for both opportunities and projects, between:
projected turnover: what is expected on deals that are already signed (your ongoing projects);
potential turnover: the same projection logic, but extended to your entire pipeline, including deals that are not yet signed or validated (your opportunities). It gives you a broader view of your theoretical turnover.
All fee-based deals, signed and unsigned (projects and opportunities combined), are therefore included in the calculation of your potential turnover, giving you a complete view of your business, both current and in the making.
VI/ Access the complete sheet of the opportunity
Access the full view of your opportunity. This complete sheet lets you manage your business with all the available information at hand.
Click the Go to project button at the top right.
And here you are in the complete file of your opportunity.
Navigate through the fees, schedule, progress etc tabs to bring your opportunity to life and manage it as if it were a signed project.
🎉 You now know how to create, complete and manage your opportunities on OOTI, from creation all the way through to the financial tracking of your pipeline!