Where did my Actions go?

In the latest release, “Actions” have been replaced with “Tasks.” Tasks are steps, activities, or other “to-do’s” that need to be completed to move the lead through the sales process.

Scheduled Tasks for each day appear on your dashboard as you log into Open Leads, and your entire list of tasks can be viewed from your Lead List. Each account now has two new Views included, one called “Active Tasks” and one called “Completed Tasks.” Clicking between these will show you your upcoming Tasks, whether scheduled or open-ended, and your completed tasks. You may modify these as you wish, or use them as guide to create other views for Active Tasks for a particular user, or period of time, etc., simply by recreating the filters used in these views, and then adding additional filters to display the data you want to see.

Creating Management “Reports” using Views

Sales Managers using Open Leads can create Management “Reports” using the filtering and view tools. Because users can filter their lead list by any field in the system, including Users and elements in the Sales Pipeline, plus date range and save these as views, creating views to show all closed sales, pending sales, sales by salesperson, etc. are quick and easy.

For example, to create a View to show closed sales this month – go to your Lead List, and selct “Add Filters.” For the first filter, select “Status/Pipeline” and then select “Closed Won.” This will show you all of your closed sales. By simply adding a field for “Date Sold,” you can then add a filter so that the results will show all closed leads for a period of time, such as the current week or month.

Manage your list with Types

The Types system in Open Leads gives users a great deal of flexibility in managing and sorting your leads. While the Pipeline System allows you to flag a lead as a Hot, Warm, Cold or Closed lead, Types allows you to build upon this by creating segments of your lead list – such as Current Customers, Website Leads, Walk-ins, Phone Leads, etc.

Lead segmenting using Types means that you can break up your marketing and handle these segments in different manners if you wish.

Updated Workflows

The release of the latest version of Open Leads includes a revised Workflow system. While functioning much the same way as Workflow always has, some key features have been added to incorporate the Sales Pipeline Functionality.

As you create an new Workflow, or edit an existing one, you will now see the Pipeline information. Editing this will allow you to automatically apply a Status, Opportunity, Stage and Value to any lead to which this Workflow is applied. Keep in mind that Workflows can be applied manually, or automatically via the submission of a form.

An additional new feature in Workflows is the ability to add or delete a user or add or delete a type upon application of the Workflow to a new lead. This upgrades the previous version in which you could only add Types and Users.

Autoresponders and the addition of Tasks remains the same as in the previous version, with the exception that the previous version referred to tasks as “Actions.”

Using the Sales Pipeline Feature

The Sales Pipeline and Status feature, which is located on the right side of the Lead Detail Screen,allows you to assign a Status (Cold, Warm, Hot, Closed Won and Closed Lost) to a lead; and classify which Sales Opportunity that it is in. Additionally, users may list a percentage of completion (or likelihood to close), and a one-time or recurring value to the Opportunity. Sales personnel and managers can then create Views that filter this information and display data such as potential sales, won sales, lost sales, or sales personnel performance over a given period of time.

Sales Pipeline data can be incrementally updated manually, or automatically upon the completion of a task using Workflows. See the entry on updated Workflows for more information on this feature.

To implement the new Sales Pipeline feature in your existing account, first create your Opportunities in the Settings Tab. Then, using Views on the Lead List screen, you can sort your list to identify your hot prospects, for example, and apply elements of the Sales Pipeline in mass. These options have been added to the dropdown menu to the right side of the Lead List.

Fall Update – Coming Monday, October 6!

We are pleased to announce a major update to your Open Leads account, which will launch this Monday. Among the new features included in this update are:

* Sales Pipeline *
One of the most requested features over the past year is the ability to monitor sales, which lead to the development of our new Lead Status/ Sales Pipeline. Each lead in your account will be able to be classified by product line, value, status, and completion percentage. Completing steps in your sales workflow automatically increments your sales perentage to the next level until you achieve “Sales Won” or “Sales Lost.” This powerful feature also allows managers to run reports to see how many sales are in the pipeline and their dollar values.

* Same Page Editing *
This is the “Wake the kids and phone the neighbors” change to Open Leads that we have been working on for several months. All edits for your leads, including adding fields and types are now handled on a single screen, making Open Leads the easiest to use Lead Management application on the market today.

* Updated User Interface *
New functionality lead us to create a freshened, easier to read look for Open Leads.

* Sales Tips and Power User Hints *
Open Leads now incorporates a new content engine that allows you to receive dynamic and informative sales lessons from the top sales trainers in the world, plus Hints and Tips from Open Leads Power Users.

* New Tasks System *
We have integrated Tasks more closely with the Leads in Open Leads and have eliminated the more generic “Actions” tab. This allows users to quickly and easily monitor their active, pending and past due tasks, plus you may also now cancel pending tasks on leads quickly and easily from the lead detail screen.

* Mass Apply Tasks *
With the new Tasks functions, comes the ability to mass apply a task to your entire lead list or a segment of the list you have sorted using Views.

* New Views *
User feedback concerning our views led to a redesign of the View and Filter system, making it easier and more powerful than before,.

* Custom Field Labeling *
Users may now group their custom fields together and label the groups, greatly reducing the effort needed to add new fields to a Lead record.

* Copy Lead Across Accounts *
Have more than one Open Leads account? You can now move entire lead records from one account to another with the push of a button.

* Workflow Updates *
Workflow has been updated to integrate Sales Pipeline updates. We have also added the ability to add and remover users and types via Workflows.