Opportunities
Overview
Sugar's Opportunities module allows you to track individual sales and their line items from start to finish. Each opportunity record serves as a header for a group of revenue line items as well as relating to other important records such as quotes, contacts, etc. Each revenue line item is the prospective sale of a particular product and includes relevant sale data. Each revenue line item will typically progress through several Sales Stages until it is marked either "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". The Opportunity record reflects the amount and expected close date of its revenue line items. Opportunities and revenue line items can be leveraged even further by using Sugar's Forecasts module to understand and predict sales trends as well as focus work to achieve sales quotas. For more information on the Forecasts module, please refer to the Forecasts documentation.
Note: If your instance is configured to use opportunities alone without revenue line items, please refer to the Opportunities documentation in the Sugar Professional Application Guide. For more information about changing your opportunities model via Admin > Opportunities, please see the Opportunities Configuration documentation in the Administration Guide.
You can view opportunity information in opportunity-based dashlets such as "My Closed Opportunities". Clicking an opportunity's name or bubble from any dashlet will open the Opportunities record view while hovering on the bubble will display key details in a tooltip. For more information on using dashlets and viewing opportunity records via dashlets, please refer to the Dashboards and Dashlets documentation.
This documentation will cover information and actions specific to the Opportunities module. For instructions concerning views and actions which are common across most Sugar modules, such as creating, editing, and deleting calls, please refer to the Working With Sugar Modules section of this page.
Please note that you will only be able to see opportunity records as allowed by your team membership, user access type, and assigned roles. For more information on teams and roles, please refer to the Team Management and Role Management documentation in the Administration Guide.
Note: The Opportunities module is not available for Sugar Serve users. For more information on license types and the functionality available for each type, refer to the User Management documentation.
Opportunity Fields
The Opportunities module contains a number of stock fields that come out-of-the-box with Sugar. For information on using and editing various field types, refer to the User Interface documentation. The definitions below are suggested meanings for the fields, but the fields can be leveraged differently to best meet your organization's needs. Administrators or users with developer-level role access have the ability to alter, add, or remove fields via Admin > Studio. For more information on configuring fields, please refer to the Studio documentation in the Administration Guide.
Field | Description |
Account Name | The account to which the opportunity belongs |
Assigned to | The Sugar user assigned to the opportunity |
Best | Calculated as the total of Best values of all related revenue line items, the opportunity's most optimistic total amount. The amount will display in the system default currency or, if your Show Preferred Currency option is enabled on your user profile, in your preferred currency. If the record's selected currency differs, you will also see a grey box with the value displayed using the record's selected currency. For more information, please refer to the Currencies and Opportunities section of this page. Note: The Best value for related revenue line items in a sales stage of "Closed Lost" will not be included in the calculation. |
Campaign | The campaign, if any, from which the opportunity originated Note: This is an optional field as not all opportunities will have a campaign. |
Comment Log | A shared log of messages, comments, or other text, including the name of the user that added the log entry and the date and time it was added. It is possible to tag other users and link to other Sugar records in Comment Log entries by inserting a clickable pill; see the User Interface documentation for more details. |
Date Created | The date the opportunity record was created |
Date Modified | The date the opportunity record was last modified |
Description | A description or other information about the opportunity |
Expected Close Date1 |
Calculated as the last expected close date of all open related revenue line items. It will not include closed records in the calculation until all related revenue line items are either "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". |
Integration Sync ID |
The sync key field used by external integrations to identify Sugar records in the external application. See the Integrate REST API endpoints in the Developer Guide for more details on how to use this field. |
Lead Source | The source (e.g. Trade Show) from which the opportunity originated |
Likely | Calculated as the total of Likely values of all related revenue line items, the opportunity's most probable total amount. The amount will display in the system default currency or, if your Show Preferred Currency option is enabled on your user profile, in your preferred currency. If the record's selected currency differs, you will also see a grey box with the value displayed using the record's selected currency. For more information, please refer to the Currencies and Opportunities section of this page. Note: The Likely value for related revenue line items in a sales stage of "Closed Lost" will not be included in the calculation. |
Next Step | The succeeding stage of the opportunity's sales cycle |
Opportunity Name | The name of the opportunity |
Predictions | Displayed as a column in the Opportunities list view for Sugar Sell instances with SugarPredict enabled, this field shows the opportunity win likelihood scores for each record. |
Renewal Badge (unlabeled) | For opportunities with open and renewable revenue line items, a badge will appear next to the opportunity's name with the date that the next renewal term begins. |
Sales Stage1 | The opportunity's current sales stage (e.g. Prospecting, Qualification, etc.), calculated based on the open related revenue line items. It will not include closed records in the calculation until all related revenue line items are either "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". |
Service Duration1 | Calculated as the longest service duration of all open related service revenue line items. It will not include closed records in the calculation until all related revenue line items are either "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". |
Service Start Date1 | Calculated as the earliest service start date of all open related revenue line items, available only when marked as a "Service". It will not include closed records in the calculation until all related revenue line items are either "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". |
Status | Calculated based on the sales stages of the related revenue line items, the current status of the opportunity (e.g. New, In Progress, etc.) |
Teams | The Sugar team(s) assigned to the opportunity record |
Type | The type (e.g. new business, existing business) of opportunity |
Update Open Revenue Line Items1 |
Available in edit mode, enabling the control and cascading of values to open revenue line items |
Worst |
Calculated as the total of Worst values of all related revenue line items, the opportunity's least optimistic total amount. The amount will display in the system default currency or, if your Show Preferred Currency option is enabled on your user profile, in your preferred currency. If the record's selected currency differs, you will also see a grey box with the value displayed using the record's selected currency. For more information, please refer to the Currencies and Opportunities section of this page. |
1 For more information on these fields, please review the Cascading Values on Opportunity section of this page.
Opportunities Tile View
Tile View allows users to visualize and engage with their opportunities in an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Users can drag a tile from one column to another to change its status or change the expected close date from one month to the next.
To access Tile View, navigate to the Opportunities list view and click on the Tile View icon next to the search bar:
When using Tile View for the Opportunities module, you can toggle between two group-by options: Opportunities by Time and the group-by option configured by your administrator. By default, the second grouping is Opportunities by Sales Stage, but your admin may have configured a different grouping such as Opportunities by Lead Source:
For more information on using the Tile View, refer to the User Interface documentation. For information on configuring Tile View layouts and groupings, refer to the Tile View Settings documentation in the Administration Guide.
Tile View With Revenue Line Items
Instances that leverage the Revenue Line Items module will enjoy added benefits when using Tile View. Instead of updating the sales stage and expected close dates in each revenue line item in an opportunity one-by-one, users can update all of an opportunity's revenue line items at once; Dragging an opportunity from one column to another will update all of the opportunity's open revenue line items in one quick action.
When interacting with Opportunities Tile View in an instance using revenue line items, keep in mind the following rules:
- When an opportunity has more than one revenue line item and those line items have different sales stages, the opportunity will show up in the column associated with the latest (right-most) sequential sales stage that is not Closed Won or Closed Lost.
- Opportunities with all line items in the Closed Lost stage will appear in the Closed Lost column.
- Opportunities with all line items in either closed stage and at least one of them are Closed Won will appear in the Closed Won column.
- Moving an opportunity from one sales stage to another in Tile View will update all open revenue line items in the opportunity to the new sales stage.
- Moving an opportunity from one month to another in Tile View will update the expected close dates for all of its open revenue line items to the last day of the month that it is moved to.
SugarPredict
Customers interested in A.I.-powered opportunity insights may want to consider the Sugar Sell product line. SugarPredict in Sugar Sell uses your account data along with intelligence gathered from millions of other companies and contacts to accurately predict who is most likely to become your next customer. The predictions are surfaced in Sugar via badges and scoring in dashlets and list views, making it easy for Sugar Sell users to quickly benefit from the insights at a glance.
For more information on the products that use SugarPredict, refer to the SugarPredict documentation.
Revenue Line Items and Opportunities
When creating a new opportunity, you will be required to also create at least one revenue line item. This is because the opportunity serves as a header for a set of revenue line items, and the opportunity's amount and probability fields are roll-ups of this revenue line item data. For more information about revenue line items, please refer to the Revenue Line Items documentation.
Please note that the related revenue line item(s) in the subpanel determine the value for certain Opportunity fields (e.g. Status, Expected Close Date, Likely, etc.). The opportunity's Status field will be "New" until a revenue line item is added. It will then remain "In Progress" until all of the related revenue line items are closed. If all related revenue line items are "Closed Won", then the parent opportunity will also be marked "Closed Won". If all related revenue line items are "Closed Lost", then the opportunity will also be marked "Closed Lost". The opportunity's Expected Close Date field will automatically reflect the latest close date of its open related revenue line items. Throughout the opportunity's life cycle, the opportunity's amount fields (Likely, Best, Worst) will be automatically populated as the total of the corresponding fields on its related revenue line items.
Note: The Expected Close Date, Sales Stage, and Service Start Date fields will not include values from closed revenue line items until all are either "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost".
Cascading Values on Opportunity
Four fields on the opportunity record have the ability to push values to the related revenue line item records' corresponding fields: Expected Close Date, Sales Stage, Service Start Date, and Service Duration. Below each of these fields is a checkbox field labeled "Update Open Revenue Line Items" when editing an existing opportunity. If an Update Open Revenue Line Items checkbox field is enabled, the corresponding field in the open and eligible revenue line items will adopt the values set on the opportunity. If the Update Open Revenue Line Items checkbox fields are disabled, you can set the fields individually on the revenue line items and the opportunity fields are calculated according to the criteria outlined in the cascading rules section. Please note that the ability to cascade values from the opportunity to revenue line items is also available when editing the record via the opportunities list view, subpanel, preview view, and record view as well as during lead conversion.
Note: The cascading fields are read-only when initially creating an opportunity.
Cascading Rules
The following table explains what behavior to expect when viewing or editing the opportunity cascade fields, which values will cascade up to the opportunity, and under what circumstances. For example, the first row of the table is interpreted as: When viewing the opportunity's Expected Close Date field, if all revenue line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Won", then the field will be read-only and the field's value will be set as the latest date of the "Closed Won" revenue line item(s).
Opportunity Field |
IF... | THEN... |
|
Revenue Line Item Criteria | Opportunity Field State | Opportunity Field Calculated Value | |
Expected Close Date | All revenue line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Won" | Read-only | The latest date of the "Closed Won" revenue line item(s) |
All revenue line items are "Closed Lost" | The latest date of the "Closed Lost" revenue line item(s) | ||
At least one revenue line item is open | Editable | The latest date of the open revenue line item(s) | |
Sales Stage | All revenue line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Won" | Read-only | "Closed Won" |
All revenue line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Lost" | "Closed Lost" | ||
At least one revenue line item is open | Editable | The most advanced sales stage of the open revenue line item(s) | |
Service Start Date | No service revenue line items exist | Read-only | Blank |
All service revenue line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Won" | Earliest date of the "Closed Won" service revenue line item(s) | ||
All service revenue line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Lost" | Earliest date of the "Closed Lost" service revenue line item(s) | ||
At least one service revenue line item is open | Editable | Earliest date of the open service revenue line item(s) | |
Service Duration | No service revenue line items exist | Read-only | Blank |
All service line items are closed and at least one is "Closed Won" | Maximum duration of the "Closed Won" service line item(s) | ||
All service revenue line items are "Closed Lost" | Maximum duration of the "Closed Lost" service revenue line item(s) | ||
At least one service revenue line item is open but without a flexible duration1 | Maximum duration of the open and "Closed Won" service revenue line items | ||
At least one service revenue line item is open with a flexible duration | Editable | Maximum duration of the open, flexible duration service revenue line item(s) |
1 A revenue line item's Duration field may be uneditable if its related product catalog record has the Lock Duration field enabled or it is a coterminous add-on.
Services and Renewable Revenue Line Items
Opportunities can have line items that represent services or subscriptions that may be sold with a defined start and end date and that may be renewed on a regular basis. When these fields are used in Sugar Sell, the renewable services will get automatically added to the future pipeline as they are sold and can be tracked via the Renewals Console.
Note: You must use Sugar Sell with revenue line items enabled to take advantage of pipeline renewal automation functionality.
To designate a revenue line item as a service, simply place a checkmark in the Service field. This can be configured for product records in the Product Catalog module or one-off on the revenue line item, as shown here:
If no product catalog record is selected, and the revenue line item is marked as a service, the Service Duration, Service Start Date, and Renewable fields will become editable. If a product is selected from the Product Catalog, the Service and Service Duration field values will automatically populate from the related product record. Additionally, if the Lock Duration field is checked on the related product catalog record, the Service Duration field cannot be modified on the revenue line item record. The Service End Date will automatically calculate based on the values in the Service Duration and Service Start Date fields. For more information on creating and managing records in the Product Catalog, please refer to the Product Catalog documentation in the Application Guide.
Revenue Line Items Subpanel
The Revenue Line Items subpanel contains all line items which make up this opportunity. Every opportunity must have one or more related revenue line items, and each revenue line item must belong to an opportunity. Because of this, there is no "Unlink" option in the Record Actions Menu to the right of each row. A quote can be generated from one or more of an opportunity's revenue line items from this subpanel. For more information, please refer to the Generating Quotes From Revenue Line Items section of this page.
While the Revenue Line Items subpanel appears to be a typical subpanel on existing opportunities, it behaves uniquely when creating new opportunities, as explained in the following section, Creating Opportunities With Revenue Line Items.
Creating Opportunities With Revenue Line Items
When creating an opportunity, you can create one or more revenue line items in the subpanel that appears beneath the opportunity:
The Revenue Line Items subpanel allows the following operations when creating a new opportunity:
- Scroll horizontally within the subpanel to view all available revenue line item fields.
- To add additional line items to the opportunity, click the Plus button to the right of the row. The current Revenue Line Item row will be validated when adding a new row to ensure that all required fields and data are entered properly.
- To remove any revenue line items from the opportunity, simply click the Minus button to the right of the row. Please note that you cannot remove the topmost revenue line item as at least one related revenue line item is required for the opportunity to save. Instead, simply edit the row to contain the correct details.
Note: Users can add revenue line items based on a product catalog item using their preferred currency (e.g. Euro) instead of the product catalog item's currency by enabling the Create Revenue Line Items in Preferred Currency option in their user profile.
After the opportunity is saved, the revenue line item(s) will appear in the Revenue Line Items subpanel in the opportunity's record view.
Product Catalog Dashlet
The Product Catalog dashlet provides users with a simple way to access the Product Catalog directly from the opportunity record and instantly add products from the catalog as revenue line items. The Product Catalog dashlet is located next to the opportunity when creating a new opportunity and also on the Opportunities Record Dashboard on an opportunity's record view.
The following sections explain the various features and components of the Product Catalog dashlet. For detailed steps on creating revenue line items via the Product Catalog dashlet, please refer to the Creating Revenue Line Items via Product Catalog Dashlet section of this page.
Note: The Product Catalog records must be created before users can select products when adding line items. The Product Catalog, Product Categories, Product Types, and Manufacturers modules are accessible by all users. For more information on adding and modifying products in the product catalog, please refer to the Product Catalog documentation. When you select an item from the Product Catalog dashlet, the line item's tax class, cost, and manufacturer information will be pre-filled by values set by your administrator and therefore cannot be edited.
Viewing Products and Categories via Dashlet
In the Product Catalog dashlet, product categories are represented as folders and are organized to reflect the structure of the customer's category hierarchy. Users can search for products and categories and click on individual folders to reveal the products contained in each category. To close an expanded category folder, click on the open-folder icon.
Simply click on a product name to instantly add the product to the opportunity. The new line item will be pre-populated with values specific to the product and can be edited for quantity, discount, or unit price prior to saving. For more information, please refer to the Creating Revenue Line Items via Product Catalog Dashlet section of this page.
Searching for Products and Categories via Dashlet
Users can also search for products using the Search field on the Product Catalog dashlet.
Upon entering a search term, a list of matching product categories and matching products will be shown in the dashlet. If the user clicks on a category (e.g. a folder) in the list of search results, all products in the category are loaded, not only the products that match the search terms.
Previewing Products via Dashlet
Click on the icon next to a product name to view the complete details of its Product Catalog record:
After clicking the icon, the record's detail view opens. Click the "Add" button to add it to the opportunity as a revenue line item. To close the Product Catalog record's details without adding the product as a line item, click the "Cancel" button.
Favoriting Products via Dashlet
For products in the product catalog that you use often and would like easier access to, you can mark the product as a favorite when viewing the details of the record. Simply click the star icon to the right of the product's name in the upper left of the record view to designate it as a favorite. If you wish to remove the product as a favorite, click the star again to revert it to white. To close the product catalog record's details, simply click the Cancel button. After a product is marked as a favorite, it will appear under the Favorites tab of the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet.
Creating Revenue Line Items via Product Catalog Dashlet
If you need to add a line item for a product that is in the Product Catalog, you can easily find and select the product directly from the Product Catalog dashlet, which is located next to the opportunity record when creating a new opportunity and also on the Opportunities Record Dashboard from an opportunity's record view. For more information on searching for products and interacting with the dashlet, please refer to the appropriate Product Catalog Dashlet subsections on this page.
Note: The Product Catalog records must be created before users can select products when adding line items. The Product Catalog, Product Categories, Product Types, and Manufacturers modules are accessible by all users. For more information on adding and modifying products in the product catalog, please refer to the Product Catalog documentation. When you select an item from the Product Catalog dashlet, the line item's tax class, cost, and manufacturer information will be pre-filled by values set by your administrator and therefore cannot be edited.
Use the following steps to add a revenue line item to a new or existing opportunity using the Product Catalog dashlet:
Note: You can follow the same steps below to add a line item using the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet.
- Create a new opportunity record via any of the various creation methods explained in the User Interface documentation or navigate to a previously saved opportunity. For this example, we will select "Create Opportunity" from the Opportunity module's tab menu.
- To view and use the Product Catalog dashlet with existing opportunity records, simply expand the opportunity's record-view dashboard (if needed) by clicking on the double-arrow icon next to the record's Edit button and then select the Opportunities Record Dashboard or any other dashboard that has been configured to display the Product Catalog dashlet.
- On the Create screen, enter the general opportunity information in the form's fields.
- The Product Catalog dashlet will be displayed to the right of the opportunity. When you are ready to add a new revenue line item, click on any product name in the dashlet to add it as an editable revenue line item.
Note: Users can add revenue line items based on a product catalog item using their preferred currency (e.g. Euro) instead of the product catalog item's currency by enabling the Create Revenue Line Items in Preferred Currency option in their user profile.
For more information on searching for and adding products as line items, please refer to the appropriate Product Catalog Dashlet subsections of this page.- For previously saved opportunities, clicking a product name will reveal a quick-create revenue line item record populated with the product's part number and unit price, which are copied from the Product Catalog.
- Use the scroll bar to view all of the line item's available fields. Modify the Quantity field if the default value of "1" is not correct. Please note that users may enter line items with a quantity of zero to denote optional products, previously-paid items, or to handle other situations. Rows with zero quantity will not affect the value of the opportunity.
- Click "Save" to save the opportunity and revenue line items together or, for existing opportunities, to add the line item to the Revenue Line Items subpanel.
Product Catalog Quick Picks Dashlet
The Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet provides easy access to products in the product catalog that you recently used or marked as favorites. The dashlet consists of two tabs (Recently Used, Favorites) and is located to the right of the page when creating a new opportunity, as well as in the Opportunities record view intelligence pane. If the dashlet is not displayed in the intelligence pane, you can add the dashlet by editing the dashboard. For more information on adding dashlets, refer to the Dashboards and Dashlets documentation. The Recently Used tab allows you to see a list of products from the product catalog that you most recently added to an opportunity as a revenue line item. While the Favorites tab displays a list of products that you have marked as favorites. For more information on marking products as favorites, refer to the Favoriting Products via Dashlet section of this page.
You can select products directly from the Product Catalog dashlet or the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet to instantly add it as a revenue line item to an opportunity. For more information on adding revenue line items to new or existing opportunities using the Product Catalog dashlet, refer to the Creating Revenue Line Items via Product Catalog Dashlet section of this page. Please note that you can follow the same steps to add revenue line items using the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet. Once the product is added as a revenue line item, you can refresh the page and it will appear under the Recently Used tab of the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet. The dashlet will display up to 10 products that you most recently used across opportunity records.
Favoriting Products via Dashlet
In addition to favoriting a product when viewing the details of the record via the Product Catalog dashlet, you can also mark a product listed in the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet as a favorite. Simply click the icon to the left of the product's name under the Recently Used tab to access the product catalog record.
Click the star icon to the right of the product's name in the upper left of the record view to designate it as a favorite. If you wish to remove the product as a favorite, click the star again to revert it to white. To close the product catalog record's details, simply click the Cancel button.
After a product is marked as a favorite, it will appear under the Favorites tab in alphabetical order. By default, the dashlet displays 8 products per page, and you can use the arrows and numbers to view additional favorited products. You can easily select a product under the tab to add as a revenue line item to new or existing opportunities. Simply follow the steps covered in the Creating Revenue Line Items via Product Catalog Dashlet section of this page using the Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet.
Importing Opportunities
The import function allows you to push multiple opportunity records into Sugar using a .csv file instead of creating them one-by-one. When an opportunity is imported into Sugar, at least one revenue line item must also be imported and related to the opportunity in order to populate the amounts (e.g. best, likely, etc.), Expected Close Date, Sales Stage, Service Start Date, and Service Duration fields on the opportunity record. When you are importing opportunity and revenue line items, please be sure to import your opportunities first, followed by your revenue line items. Each revenue line item row must include its parent opportunity's ID as well as values for its amount fields (i.e. Best, Likely, Worst). For more information on importing, please refer to the Import documentation.
Quotes and Opportunities
Quotes and opportunities both track sales throughout their lifecycle, but the two modules serve different purposes. Quotes allow you to communicate the details of a sale with customers while opportunities allow you to forecast potential sales and the possible ranges of their dollar amounts. To aid in using both modules, Sugar allows you to generate an opportunity from a quote as well as to generate a quote from a set of revenue line items.
Generating Opportunities From Quotes
To generate an opportunity including its set of revenue line items from a quote, choose "Create Opportunity from Quote" from the quote record's Actions menu.
Note: Quotes that are already "Converted" (as indicated by the badge adjacent to the quote's name in the example pictured here) cannot be re-converted into an opportunity. The "Create Opportunity from Quote" menu option will be grayed out when the quote's badge is Converted.
After selecting the Create Opportunity... option, you will be navigated to the newly created and saved opportunity, which will be pre-populated with the original quote's values in the Name, Account Name, Expected Close Date, Best, Likely, and Worst fields. In addition, the opportunity's Type will default to "New Business" and the Status to "In Progress".
The quoted line items related to the original quote will be copied to the new opportunity as revenue line items. By default, the Sales Stage values for the revenue line items are set to "Proposal/Price Quote", the Probability to "65%", and the Type to "New Business".
Because the probability defaults to 65%, the revenue line items will, by default, have a Forecast field value of "Exclude," meaning they will not be included in forecasts. You can edit the revenue line items and the opportunity record to modify any of these values as needed. The originating quote will be related to the new opportunity and can be found in the Quotes subpanel on the opportunity's record view.
For more information on creating an opportunity from a quote, please refer to the Creating Opportunities from Quotes section of the Quotes documentation.
Generating Quotes From Revenue Line Items
Quotes may be generated from one or more of an opportunity's revenue line items via the Opportunities record view's Revenue Line Items subpanel.
Use the following steps to generate a quote from an opportunity's Revenue Line Items subpanel:
- Navigate to the Revenue Line Item subpanel on an opportunity's record view.
- Select the revenue line items you wish to include on a quote.
- Choose "Generate Quote" from the subpanel's Actions menu.
- The new quote is opened in record view to allow additional changes. Make any necessary changes to the quote's fields then click "Save" to finalize the new quote record.
The quote record is automatically generated with a quoted line item record for each revenue line item record. For more information, please refer to the Quotes and Quoted Line Items documentation.
Emails and Opportunities
Opportunities may be related to emails by being selected in the email's Related To field. These relationships allow the opportunity to display all relevant email correspondence in the Emails subpanel and History dashlet on an opportunity's record view. An opportunity's Emails subpanel and History dashlet may also display emails belonging to the contacts related to the opportunity.
Emails Subpanel
The Emails subpanel in the Opportunities module displays emails which are associated with the opportunity record in a variety of ways:
- Related to the opportunity : If the opportunity is selected in the email's Related To field, the email and opportunity are explicitly related, and the email will appear in the opportunity's Emails subpanel and History dashlet. Instructions for using this flex relate field are available in the Emails documentation.
- Related to the opportunity's related contacts : If the email is related, either explicitly or implicitly, to a contact record which is related to the opportunity, the email will appear in the opportunity's Emails subpanel and History dashlet.
- Note: Administrators can enable or disable an opportunity from displaying related contact's emails via Admin > Related Contacts Emails. For more information, please refer to the Email documentation in the Administration Guide.
The Emails subpanel allows the following functions to be performed:
- Email Details : To view the details of an email, click the subject to open it in detail view.
- Record Count : Subpanel headers display the total count of related records (e.g. "5 of 6+") next to the module name. The count captures the number of records currently displayed with an additional, hyperlinked number (e.g. "6+") where there are more records than currently displayed. Click the hyperlinked number to see the total count of related records.
- Collapse or Expand : Click anywhere in the subpanel's header to collapse or expand it. Subpanels will remain collapsed or expanded on future visits to the module.
- Note: Administrators can choose to disable collapse stickiness or to collapse all subpanels by default via Admin > System Settings. For more information, please refer to the System documentation in the Administration Guide.
- Column Widths : Place your cursor on the column divider. When the double arrow cursor appears, click and drag the column to the desired size. Please note that the column width will not be preserved when you navigate away from the page.
- Column Sort : Click a column header to sort the subpanel's items by that value. Clicking the same header again will reverse the sorting order (e.g. from ascending to descending).
- Compose a New Email : Click the Plus button on the upper right of a subpanel to create a new email with, by default, a relationship to the opportunity you are currently viewing. The email will automatically select the opportunity in the Related To field.
- Note: To send email from Sugar, users must configure their outbound email server via Emails > Email Settings or, if using the system email account to send email, the system's outbound email server must be configured by an administrator in Admin > System Email Settings.
- Note: Because creating a new related record opens a drawer on top of the current record view, you should use the Cancel button to return to record view. Using the browser's back button will return you to the previous page.
- More Records : By default, Sugar displays up to five records in each subpanel, though administrators can alter the number via Admin > System Settings as described in the System documentation of the Administration Guide. If additional related records exist, click "More {Module Name}..." (e.g. "More emails...") at the bottom of the subpanel to load the next set of records.
Leads and Opportunities
Once a lead has been evaluated and qualified, it can be converted into an opportunity in addition to a contact and account. Depending on how your administrator has configured the Lead Conversion layout, it may be possible or even required to create an opportunity or relate to an existing opportunity during lead conversion. For more information on opportunities and lead conversion, please refer to the Leads documentation.
Creating via Lead Conversion
Sugar enables you to create a new opportunity record during the lead conversion process. For more information about lead conversion, please refer to the Leads documentation.
Use the following steps to create an opportunity during lead conversion:
- Navigate to a Leads record view.
- Select "Convert" from the Actions menu or click the Unconverted button to initiate the lead conversion process.
- Note: Sugar will automatically perform a duplicate check for the modules (e.g. Contacts) on the Convert Lead page.
- If there are no duplicate records found for the required modules (Contacts, Accounts) in lead conversion, the new records will be automatically marked for creation on the Convert Lead page and associated to the lead. The panel will be collapsed as well, but you can click the header to open the panel and view the record's details.
- Note: If there are duplicate records detected for a module, you can either select an existing record or create a new record. For more information, please refer to the Leads documentation.
- Once the Contact and Account panels are completed, you can proceed to the Opportunity panel to create an opportunity record.
- Enter the relevant information on the displayed record view then click "Create Opportunity". Please note that some opportunity fields will not be editable as they are based on the revenue line item you entered.
- Note: Some opportunity fields (e.g. Expected Close Date, etc.) will not be editable as they are based on the related revenue line item(s).
- Once all the appropriate panels are complete, click "Save and Convert" to convert the lead.
Once the lead has been converted successfully, the lead's record view will display the Converted badge in the header and show the converted contact, account, and opportunity below the record's detail. You can click the Preview icon to the far right of each record's row to view the details of the converted opportunity and other records.
Forecasts and Opportunities
Sugar's Forecasts module incorporates opportunity records to build forecasting worksheets and predict sales. Forecasts are based on the monetary value of the revenue line items in Sugar. Users can work towards sales quotas at the individual, team, and sales organization level. Before users can access the Forecasts module to begin building forecasting worksheets, a user with administrator access must configure the Forecasts module with the organization's desired Time Periods, Ranges, and Scenarios. For more information on setting up the Forecasts module, please refer to the Forecast Configuration documentation in the Administration Guide.
Based on the chosen filters (include, exclude, etc.), you will see all or some of your assigned revenue line items for the currently selected time period. The Forecast column displays an automatic category indicating whether or not the revenue line item's amounts are included in the totals for the specified time period. You can work directly with your revenue line item records by inline editing their probabilities and amounts from the Forecasts module or by clicking the Name field to open a record in record view where you can make additional edits. You can also view a revenue line item's details directly from the forecast worksheet by clicking the Preview icon to the far right of each row. For more information on editing and managing forecasts, please refer to the Forecasts documentation.
Contacts and Opportunities
Each opportunity can relate to one or more contacts that are displayed in a subpanel on the Opportunities record view. The Contacts subpanel allows users to select an opportunity-specific role (e.g. Primary Decision Maker, Business Evaluator, etc.) for each related contact to help you classify how each individual will ultimately factor into the buying decision for the current opportunity.
To select a role, simply choose "Edit" from the Actions menu on the far right of the record's row in the Contacts subpanel. The record's row will open up within the subpanel allowing you to edit the individual fields. Select the appropriate role for the contact then click "Save".
The selected role will be displayed adjacent to the contact for only the current opportunity.
Currencies and Opportunities
Sugar allows your organization to perform business around the world by supporting multiple currencies. Administrators must first add desired currencies and exchange rates to Sugar via Admin > Currencies. They also have the ability to set the instance's default currency via Admin > Locale. This is typically the currency of the country where the majority of business is conducted. For more information, please refer to the System documentation in the Administration Guide.
Users can specify their own preferred currency in their user profiles. If they choose to also enable the Show Preferred Currency option in their profiles, currency fields throughout Sugar will display in their chosen currency. For more information, please refer to the Getting Started documentation. Finally, each opportunity record has a Currency field where you will specify the currency being used for this particular business transaction.
Filtering on Currency Fields
Currency fields are filtered according to the record's set currency rather than being standardized to the user's preferred or system default currency. In the list view, filtering opportunities by a currency field allows you to specify the filter's currency. Only records matching both the chosen currency and amount range will be returned. For example, if you filter based on a Likely value that equals 500 in US Dollars, then the search result will return all opportunities with a Likely value of $500 but will exclude values of €500 or other currency values which are equivalent to $500.
Note: By contrast, when filtering values in the Reports module, any record matching the specified amount or range will be returned regardless of the record's currency. For example, if one revenue line item's Likely value is $500 in US Dollars and another's is €500 in Euros, filtering a report for a Likely value of exactly 500 will return both records in the report.
Updating Currency Rates
When saving an opportunity in a currency that differs from the system-defined default currency, Sugar will store the conversion rate for that currency at the record level. This conversion rate is used to calculate the converted Likely, Best, and Worst amounts when the field is set to use the system default currency (as opposed to the user's preferred currency which is explained below). To keep amounts historically accurate, the conversion rate will only update on an opportunity provided the sales stage is not set to "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". If the opportunity is in any other sales stage, the conversion rate will update under the following scenarios:
- The opportunity undergoes a save event (e.g. mass update, manual save, etc.) and the record's currency has a different conversion rate defined in Admin > Currencies than is currently saved in the opportunity.
- An administrator updates the currency exchange rate under Admin > Currencies. This will trigger a scheduled job which updates all opportunities saved with that currency to the new rate.
When the viewing user's profile has the Show Preferred Currency option selected, the converted Likely, Best, and Worst amounts display in the user's preferred currency. In this case, the conversion rate used to calculate the converted amounts is drawn directly from the conversion rate at the system level rather than any conversion rate stored on the record. This means that the value will always use the current conversion rate regardless of the opportunity's sales stage. For this reason, the converted amount fields should not be considered historically accurate for closed opportunities when it is using the user's preferred currency. For information about setting a user's Preferred Currency and Show Preferred Currency options, please refer to the Getting Started documentation.
For more information about currency exchange rates, please refer to the System documentation in the Administration Guide.
Working With Sugar Modules
The Opportunities module uses Sugar's Sidecar user interface. The following sections detail menus, views, and actions common to sidecar modules and contain links to additional information within the page or links to the User Interface documentation.
Opportunity Menus
The Opportunities module contains various options and functionality which are available via menus in the module tab, list view, and record view. The following sections present each menu and its options with links to more information about each option in the User Interface documentation or, for Opportunities-specific functionality, within this page.
Module Tab Menu
The Opportunities module tab is typically located on the navigation bar at the top of any Sugar screen. Click the tab to access the Opportunities list view. You may also click the triangle in the Opportunities tab to display the Actions, Recently Viewed, and Favorites menus. The Actions menu allows you to perform important operations within the module. The Recently Viewed menu displays the list of opportunities you most recently viewed. The Favorites menu displays the list of opportunities you most recently marked as favorites.
The module tab's Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:
Menu Item | Description |
Create Opportunity | Opens the record view layout to create a new opportunity |
View Opportunities | Opens the list view layout to search and display opportunities |
View Opportunity Reports | Displays existing reports based on the Opportunities module |
Import Opportunities | Opens the import wizard to create or update opportunities using external data |
For more information on module tab menus including reasons a module may not be included in the menu, see the User Interface documentation.
List View Menus
The Opportunities list view displays all opportunity records and allows for searching and filtering to locate specific opportunities. You can view the basic details of each record within the field columns of the list view or click an opportunity's name to open the record view. To access a module's list view, simply click the module's tab in the navigation bar at the top of any Sugar page.
List View Mass Actions Menu
The Mass Actions menu to the right of the checkbox option in the list header allows you to perform mass actions on all currently selected records. You can use the checkbox on each record's row to select individual opportunity records or click the checkbox in the list header to select all records displayed in the current set of list view results.
The Mass Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:
Menu Item | Description |
Mass Update | Mass update two or more opportunities at a time |
Merge | Merge two or more duplicate opportunities |
Delete one or more opportunities at a time | |
Export one or more opportunities to a CSV file | |
(Available in certain circumstances) Updates calculated values to reflect changes to calculated fields made in Studio |
List View Record Actions Menu
The Record Actions menu to the far right of each record's row allows you to perform actions on the individual opportunity directly from the list view.
The list view's Record Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:
Menu Item | Description |
Preview (Eye icon) | Preview this opportunity in the intelligence pane |
Edit | Edit this opportunity |
Follow | Follow this opportunity |
Delete | Delete this opportunity |
Record View Actions Menu
The Opportunities record view displays a single opportunity in full detail including its fields, subpanels of related records, and activity stream. To access an opportunity's record view, simply click a hyperlinked opportunity name from anywhere within Sugar. The record view's Actions menu appears on the top right of the page and allows you to perform various operations on the current record
The Actions menu allows you to perform the following operations:
Menu Item | Description |
Edit this opportunity. | |
Share |
Share a link to this opportunity via email. Note: To send emails through Sugar, users must first configure a default user email account via Emails > Email Settings. |
Download PDF |
Download the opportunity information as a PDF file.
|
Email PDF |
Email the opportunity information as a PDF attachment.
Note: To send emails through Sugar, users must first configure a default user email account via Emails > Email Settings. |
Find Duplicates | Locate potential duplicates of this opportunity |
Copy | Duplicate this opportunity |
Historical Summary | View a historical summary of activities (e.g. calls, meetings, etc.) related to this opportunity |
View Audit Log | View a record of changes to this opportunity |
Delete | Delete this opportunity |
Common Views and Actions
The following links will open specific sections of the User Interface documentation where you can read about views and actions that are common across most Sidecar modules.
Content Link | Description |
Creating Opportunities Basic Opportunity Creation Creating via Quick Create Creating via Subpanels Creating via Duplication Importing Opportunities |
The Creating Records section covers the various methods of creating new opportunity records, including via the Create button in the Opportunities module, the Quick Create menu on the upper right of every Sugar page, via the Opportunities subpanel on related module records, duplication of an existing opportunity record, and importing a list of opportunities into Sugar using a .csv spreadsheet. Note: For more information on importing opportunities with revenue line items, please refer to the Importing Opportunities section of this page.
|
Viewing Opportunities Viewing via List View Viewing via Record View Viewing via Recently Viewed Viewing via Dashlets Viewing via Activity Streams Viewing via Preview Viewing via Reports |
The Viewing Records section describes the various methods of viewing opportunity records, including via the Opportunities list view and record view, the Recently Viewed menu in the Opportunities module tab, list view dashlets showing opportunity information, activity stream entries concerning opportunity updates or where a user mentions an opportunity, previewing opportunities in the right-hand side panel, and reports displaying opportunity data. |
Searching for Opportunities Global Search List View Search Creating a Filter Saving a Filter |
The Searching for Records section provides an introduction to the two searching methods for locating opportunities: global search, which searches across all Sugar modules, and list view search, which searches and filters within the Opportunities module. |
Opportunities List View Total Record Count Create Button List View Search Checkbox Selection Mass Actions Menu Favorite Designation Column Reordering Column Resizing Column Sorting Column Selection Preview Record Actions Menu More Opportunities Activity Stream Dashboards |
The List View section walks through the many elements of the Opportunities List View layout which contains a filterable list of all opportunity records in Sugar. While the generic menu options are described in the User Interface sections linked to the left, the options specifically available in the Opportunities list view are described in the List View Mass Actions Menu and List View Record Actions Menu sections of this page. |
Opportunities Record View Favorite Designation Following Designation Next or Previous Record Actions Menu Show More Subpanels Related Record Subpanels Filtering Subpanels Reordering Subpanels Activity Stream Dashboards |
The Record View section walks through the many elements of the Opportunities Record View layout which contains detailed information about a single opportunity record. While the generic menu options are described in the User Interface sections linked to the left, the options specifically available in the Opportunities record view are described in the Record View Actions Menu section of this page. |
Editing Opportunities Editing Inline via Record View Editing via Record View Editing Inline via Subpanels Editing Inline via List View Mass Editing via List View |
The Editing Records section describes the various methods of editing existing opportunity records, including inline via the Opportunities record view, in full edit mode on the record view, inline via the Opportunities subpanel on related module records, inline via the Opportunities list view, and via the Mass Update option on the list view. |
Deleting Opportunities Deleting via Record View Deleting via List View Mass Deleting via List View |
The Deleting Records section describes the various methods of deleting unwanted opportunities, including via the opportunities record view, an individual record's Actions menu on the Opportunities list view, and the Mass Actions menu on the list view. Note: For data integrity purposes, an opportunity related to a revenue line item with a "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost" status may not be deleted. In addition, revenue line items in these statuses may not be deleted. If revenue line items are not enabled for your instance, an opportunity may be deleted only if its Status field is not set to "Closed Won" or "Closed Lost". For data integrity purposes, closed opportunities may not be deleted. |
Exporting Opportunities | The Exporting Records section provides an introduction to the export functionality which allows you to download a list of opportunities and all their data as a .csv file for use outside of Sugar (e.g. in Microsoft Excel). |
Recalculating Calculated Values | The Recalculating Calculated Values section provides instructions on utilizing the Recalculate Values list view option to update calculated field values in the module if the administrator has changed the field's formula via Admin > Studio. |
Finding Duplicate Opportunities | The Finding Duplicate Records section provides instructions for locating duplicate opportunity records. If searching on matching fields (e.g. Opportunity Name) identifies one or more duplicates, they can be merged into a single record. |
Merging Opportunities Merging via List View |
The Merging Records section provides instructions for merging duplicate opportunities which will combine field values and related records into a single opportunity. |
Viewing Opportunity Historical Summaries | The Viewing Record Historical Summaries section describes the Historical Summary record view option which displays quick details of the opportunity record's related calls, meetings, emails, notes, and tasks. |
Viewing Opportunity Audit Logs | The Viewing Record Audit Logs section describes the View Audit Log record view option which displays a history of changes to the opportunity's audited fields. |
Opportunity PDFs Downloading Opportunity PDFs Emailing Opportunity PDFs |
The Record PDFs section provides instructions for these record view options which allow you to download or email .pdf files of opportunity information as configured by an administrator via Admin > PDF Manager. |
Favoriting Opportunities Favoriting via List View Favoriting via Record View Favoriting via Subpanel |
The Favoriting Records section describes the various methods of marking opportunities as favorites, including via the Opportunities list view, Opportunities record view, or any Opportunities subpanel appearing on the record view of a related module. Favoriting an opportunity allows you to easily access it from list views, dashlets, or the Opportunities module tab. |
Following Opportunities Following via List View Following via Record View |
The Following Records section describes the various methods of marking opportunities as "Following", including via the Opportunities list view and record view. Following an opportunity causes its activity stream updates to be included on your Home page and Opportunities list view activity streams so that you can easily keep up with changes and user posts on the record. |
Sharing Opportunities | The Sharing Records section provides instructions for the Share record view option which composes an email with a link to the opportunity record. If the recipient is logged into Sugar, clicking the link will bring them directly to the opportunity's record view. |
Last modified: 2022-11-02 19:09:51