Working with CRM deals/opportunities within ActiveDEMAND

One of the more common use cases of automation is to trigger automation when deals are changed within your CRM. This can be achieved one of two ways:

1. Mapping external deal fields to Contact custom fields
2. Mapping external deals to ActiveDEMAND Deal objects

The first option is very easy and works very well. Basically, you create custom fields in ActiveDEMAND on the Contact object, then use changes in the field to trigger automation. The shortcoming of the first option is if a contact has more than one deal open at a time. If your contacts only have one open deal at a time, consider this approach:

How do I trigger an email when a prospect moves into a new deal stage in my CRM? (One Deal Per Contact)

If your contacts can have more than one deal open at a given time, then you will need to use the second option. ActiveDEMAND has a deal processing system that will detect deal creation/deal updates within your account.  When a deal is detected in your CRM, ActiveDEMAND will create a 'shadow deal' within ActiveDEMAND. This deal object that is created within your ActiveDEMAND account will be used to trigger automation within ActiveDEMAND. When the deal changes in your external CRM, the ActiveDEMAND deal object is updated in your account.

 

The ActiveDEMAND Pipeline Object

Each deal belongs to a Pipeline. A pipeline is a set of stages and statuses that define a deal. ActiveDEMAND will automatically set up pipelines based on incoming deals from your CRM as the deals come in. If you want to pre-configure Pipelines, you will require admin permissions. Browse to Administration->Account Settings -> Pipelines in your account settings.

Pipeline Edit:

1. Pipeline Name
2. Pipeline Description
3. Pipeline Deal Stages (these can be re-ordered by dragging)
4. Pipeline Deal Statuses 
5. Status can be one of [Open, Closed-Won, Closed-Lost]

When a deal is changed to any status that is 'Closed', the actual closed date is set. If you set a deal to 'Closed-Won', a won-deal history item is created on the timeline of the primary contact. If you delete a deal in your CRM, the deal will be deleted in ActiveDEMAND. 

 

The ActiveDEMAND Deal Object

The ActiveDEMAND Deal object is described by a set of standard fields and custom fields.

Deal Fields

1. Estimated Close date
2. Name
3. Description
4. Pipeline (Funnel)
5. Stage
6. Status
7. Value
8. Probability
9. A set of Custom Fields
10. Deal Connections

Deal Connections

A deal has associated connections to Contacts and Organizations

1. Connected Contact
2. Primary contact (can only be one)
3. Connected Organization

For the most part, the majority of the settings are created automatically when you integrate with your CRM. The exception being Deal Custom fields, these will need to be created by your account administrator (see Managing Custom Fields). 

 

Enabling Deal Objects

The ActiveDEMAND Deal Objects are created when ActiveDEMAND detects a deal has been created in your CRM if you have mapped the deal fields in your CRM Contact Update setup (Contacts->CRM Contact Updates). If you do not map to the ActiveDEMAND standard deal fields, ActiveDEMAND will not create deal objects.

 

If you map your external CRM Deal fields to ActiveDEMAND Contact custom fields, the deal objects will NOT be created.

If you have mapped the fields correctly, ActiveDEMAND will automatically create the deal stages, deal statuses, and deal pipelines as it detects incoming deals. As well ActiveDEMAND will automatically detect contact connections to the deals. 

 

 

Viewing Deals

The deals that are created as a result of a deal being created in your CRM, there are several places that you can interact with the deals in your ActiveDEMAND account.

 

Interacting with Deals On Your Dashboard

There is a deal Kanban dashboard widget that will allow you to view and interact with the deals within the associated account.

This widget will provide a card-based interface for viewing and interacting with Deal objects

 

Interacting with Deals on the Contact Record

On every Contact record, there is a deals tab. You will be able to interact with the deals associated with that specific contact

 

Interacting with Deals on the Organization Record

Similarly, there is a deals tab on the Organization records that shows all deals that are either directly associated with the company or any deals that are associated with employees of the company

 

Interacting with deals in workflows

Typically the deals are created automatically from the source CRM. You can trigger campaigns using the deal-changed starting step:

If the campaign is triggered using this starting step, the ActiveDEMAND deal object can be acted on within that campaign directly. You can set custom fields on the deal using the 

workflow action. Or you can update the ActiveDEMAND deal object using the 

 

ActiveDEMAND will NOT update the deals in your CRM automatically

When updating deal statuses using automation, you MUST interact with the CRM's version of the deal, not ActiveDEMAND's version of the deal. Any changes to the deal within ActiveDEMAND are not reflected in the deal in the CRM. Thus any changes that are made to the Deal in ActiveDEMAND will NOT be reflected in the external CRM. Any changes to the deals in your CRM will overwrite the changes you have made to deals in ActiveDEMAND. Thus if you are updating a deal, use the CRM workflow action to update the external deal, let the CRM update the deal in ActiveDEMAND.