Leads Section
This is where the salesmen enter new leads/opportunities and track them through the process of becoming an awarded or lost lead.

Add a New Lead

• First a new opportunity is added by clicking on Add a New Lead. When a lead is initially entered it has the status New.

Qualify/Disqualify

• From the New status a lead will either be Qualified or Disqualified. This can be done by any CRM user with access to Qualify/Disqualify. If a lead is Disqualified that means it moves into the Disqualified status and that is the end the line for that lead. If the lead is qualified it moves into the Qualified Status under “Open” Leads.

Open

(Qualified -> Estimate -> Proposal/Bid)

• There are 3 statuses under “Open”. Qualified is the first status, Estimate is the second status and Proposal/Bid is the third status. From the Qualified status a salesman can send this opportunity to an Estimator to create an Estimate to send to the client. The Salesman does this by clicking on Send for Estimate and following the steps. This will automatically update the status to Estimate. Moving the lead from Estimate to Proposal/Bid happens automatically when the Estimator creates the Estimate and sends it to the customer (or via salesman to send to the customer). The opportunity is now in the Proposal/Bid status, which means that the client has the proposal in their hands and the salesman is waiting to hear back on their decision.

Awarded, Lost, Void & Pending

• From the Proposal Bid status there are 4 possible statuses for the opportunity to move to. The status will be automatically updated to awarded or lost if the client accepts or rejects the proposal through the CRM extranet. However, if the client does not use the extranet it is the responsibility of the salesman to update the status.
• Awarded – The proposal was accepted and a project will be created.
• Lost – The proposal was declined.
• Void – The client decided to void the project so the opportunity was neither awarded or lost.
• Pending – This is just a temporary status. From the Pending status the opportunity will move to one of the previous three statuses (Awarded, Lost or Void).

Estimates Section
There are two main parts to the Estimates Section, Requests for Estimate and Current Open Estimates.

Requests for Estimate

• These are requests for an estimate that the estimator needs to create an estimator for. The estimator is listed along with the proposal due date. Documents can be attached to a Request for Estimate. Also, the estimator can be updated by users with the access rights to update who the estimator is on a Request for Estimate. This would usually be used in situations where a request is first assigned to an estimating manager and then assigned to an estimator by the estimating manager.

Current Open Estimates

• These are estimates that have been created by an estimator and sent to the client. The status of each estimate is listed and will be one of these:
• Not Read by Contact – The client has not yet read this estimate through the CRM extranet.
• Read by Contact – The client has viewed this estimate through the CRM extranet.
• Approved – The client has approved this estimate. Either the client approved this estimate through the CRM extranet or the Salesman manually updated this estimate to awarded when they set the status of an opportunity to Awarded.
• Rejected - The client has rejected this estimate. Either the client rejected this estimate through the CRM extranet or the Salesman manually updated this estimate to rejected when they set the status of an opportunity to Lost.

Projects Section

Creating a Project

• Projects can be created directly from a related estimate in the Estimates section by viewing an approved estimate and clicking Create Project. A project can also be created by clicking Add a Quick Task.

Open Projects

• Once a project has been opened users with CRM access rights can begin assigning tasks to users or the client. To assign a task to a user click on the Tasks sub-menu and click Create New Task. To assign a task to a client click on the Client Tasks sub-menu and click Create Client Task.
• Task dependencies can be assigned to both user tasks and to client tasks. This means that you can specify that Task B and Task C need to be completed before Task A can be completed.

Billing Section

Fixed Budget

• For fixed budget billing projects you can add a payment for any amount to the billing for that project.

Hourly Billing

• Billable tasks that are associated with hourly billing projects will automatically display in this section when the completed task is Sent to Billing. In the hourly billing section this bill can be marked as paid when the client submits their payment.

My Tasks Section
These are tasks that have been assigned to the user that is currently logged into the CRM. From here the user can create a task, add hours to a task, modify a task, send a task for approval and approve a task given that they have the access rights through the CRM to perform these actions.

Documents

Documents Manager

• View all documents that have been uploaded into the CRM.

Document Upload

• Upload new documents into the CRM

Document Administration

• Specify which file types are allowed to be uploaded into the CRM. (Ex: You can specify here to disallow users to upload files with a .exe extension.)

Calendar
Depending on your CRM access right you are able to view your CRM information, all CRM information and/or group CRM information through the calendar section. This section is viewed by month. You are able to browse through months by clicking Prev/Next or you can jump to a specific date.

Contact Center
There are three main sections to the Contact Center: Companies, Contacts and Follow-Up Notes.

Companies

• This is where you view/add/modify/remove Companies.

Contacts

• This is where you view/add/modify/remove Contacts. Each contact is associated with a Company.

Follow-Up Notes

• My Follow-Ups – Follow-ups that the user currently logged in is scheduled for.
• All Follow-Ups – View follow-ups for all users
• Past Due Follow-Ups – View Past Due follow-ups that have not yet been completed.
• Today Follow-Ups – View follow-ups due today that have not yet been completed.

Users Section
This is where you add/edit/delete CRM users and set CRM user access rights.

Add User

• New users must be associated with a contact that has already been entered into the Contact Center. When you create a new user you are also able to specify whether that user is a salesman, estimator, manager, etc… If the user is an estimator or salesman you must check the respective box so that their name shows up in the drop-down menu’s for Estimator and Salesman.

Activating/Deactivating Users

• Active users will have the Active checkbox checked. Deactivated (Removed) users will not have the Active checkbox checked. This can be done when a new user is created or by editing an existing user.

User Work Groups
Here you can create workgroups with permissions to the CRM. Once you create a workgroup you can assign users to this workgroup. All of the users assigned to this workgroup will inherit the permissions given to that workgroup. Users can belong to multiple workgroups. Edit the permissions associated with a workgroup by clicking Edit Permissions. Edit the membership of a workgroup by clicking Edit Membership.