A deal represents a sales opportunity, not the customer’s entire relationship with you. Use separate deals for separate opportunities and link them to the relevant contact. The Deals board groups opportunities by your workspace’s stages.
Create an opportunity#
- Open Deals and choose New deal. Creating a deal needs write access to Deals; with read-only access, New deal (on the toolbar and in an empty stage) is shown disabled.
- Enter a Deal name (up to 120 characters; longer shows That deal name is too long — 120 characters at most.), and choose a Stage. These are required. Deal owner starts as you; pick a teammate or Unassigned.
- Optionally add a Deal value, a Tag (pick one or choose Create tag), and a Close date, and optionally a Company (used to find or create the linked contact; see below). Started from a contact, the form shows that contact under Contact instead.
- Select New deal. Open the saved record to review fields under Record details.
Leave Close date empty (it reads “In 30 days”) and the deal gets a close date 30 days ahead; change or clear it on the record later. An omitted deal value is saved as zero.
Enter the value as a number; commas, spaces, and a dollar sign are ignored, so “12,000” works. A value that still isn’t a number, such as “12k”, is refused with Enter the deal value as a number. instead of being saved. An empty stage also shows its own New deal button, which starts the deal in that stage. If you pick a teammate as Deal owner, they get an assignment notification, subject to their notification settings.
Understand the company field#
When you create a deal from the board, Company is used to find a contact with a matching company or name. If there is no match, Ariyel creates a contact using that company name and links it to the deal.
Leave Company blank to create the deal without a contact.
To associate a specific existing contact without relying on company matching, start from that contact’s linked-deals picker and choose New deal. The form shows that contact under Contact instead of Company. You can also change or clear the contact link on the saved deal. Selecting a different contact replaces the previous association.
To link a person who isn’t in Ariyel yet, open the deal’s Contact field and choose New contact. The contact you create is linked to that deal.
Move and organize the pipeline#
Drag a card between stages, or open the deal and change Stage. In Manual order, you can also arrange cards within a stage. When a field sort is active, that sort determines the within-stage order; dragging can still move a deal to another stage.
From the keyboard, focus a card and hold Shift with the left or right arrow to move it to the next visible stage; Shift with up or down reorders it within the stage in Manual order. Enter opens the record. Moving deals requires write access to Deals.
Use View settings to choose card fields, sorting, and visible stages. A hidden stage is a display preference, not a deletion. Check hidden stages and active filters before assuming a deal is missing. When search and filters hide every deal, the board shows No deals match with a Reset view button, which clears the search, the filter, and any open saved view.
Hidden stages apply only to your own board, unless a named view is open: then they change that view for everyone. With Full access to Deals, View settings also offers Add field to view, which creates a deal field and adds it to your cards; see Custom fields. Search deals… matches deal names and the linked contact’s name, email, company, or phone number.
Set up stages#
New workspaces start with Lead in, Qualified, Proposal sent, Negotiation, Closed won, and Closed lost. Stage changes apply to everyone’s board and need Full access to Deals; owners and admins always have it.
- Add a stage: choose the dashed + after the last column, type a name (up to 60 characters), and press Enter. The new stage appears at the end.
- Rename or recolor: click the stage name at the top of its column. Edit the name, or choose the color dot to pick one of 12 colors. Enter saves; Escape discards the rename.
- Describe it: in the same menu, choose Add description to explain what belongs in the stage, in up to 280 characters. Teammates see it from the info icon beside the stage name.
- Celebrate it: turn on Confetti to play a burst when a deal is moved into that stage on the board or with Edit deal.
- Require fields: choose Required fields to pick deal fields under System fields and Custom fields that must be filled before a deal can enter the stage; the row shows a count once some are set. Name is always on, fields Ariyel fills in for you (such as Created time), lookups, and buttons can’t be required, and Create field adds a new deal field without leaving the list.
- Reorder: drag a stage by its grip, or focus the grip and hold Shift with the left or right arrow.
- Delete: choose Delete. Deals are never deleted with a stage—the dialog counts the stage’s deals; pick a stage under Move deals to, then choose Move and delete. An empty stage skips the picker: the dialog says “No deals are in this stage. This can’t be undone.” and the button is Delete stage. A pipeline must keep at least one stage.
When someone moves a deal into a stage with an empty required field (dragging, Shift with the left or right arrow, changing Stage, Move to stage on several deals, or New deal), a dialog titled “Move deal name to stage” asks for just the missing fields. Move deal stays unavailable until each has a value, then saves the values and the move together; Cancel leaves the deal where it was, or returns to the form with your input kept. In a bulk move, complete deals move at once and the rest are asked one by one (Deal 1 of 3, and so on), where Cancel skips just that deal. Fields aren’t locked once a deal is in the stage, and workflows, sequences, imports, and the API don’t check required fields.
The same menu has Collapse, which narrows a stage to a slim rail showing its name and count. Like the rest of the stage menu, it needs Full access to Deals (owners and admins always have it); other members can’t collapse stages, though a rail they already collapsed still expands with a click. Click the rail to expand it again. Collapsing is remembered in this browser only and does not affect teammates.
Owners and admins can also edit stages in Settings → Objects → Deals: open the Stage field, or choose Edit stages from its menu.
See totals for a stage#
Each stage header shows how many deals match your current search and filters. Below a stage’s cards, choose Add calculation to show Count empty, Count filled, Percent empty, Percent filled, Sum, Average, Max, or Min of deal value for that stage. Average, Max, and Min ignore deals with no value. Choose the same calculation again to clear it. Your choice is remembered in this browser.
Work with several deals#
Hover a card and tick its checkbox to select it; hold Shift and tick another card’s checkbox to select the range between them. The bar at the bottom offers Move to stage, Assign owner, Add tag, and More → Export CSV or Delete. Members with read-only access to Deals see only Export CSV. A tag can be up to 60 characters. Export CSV downloads the selected deals with Deal, Stage, Value, Contact, Owner, Close date, and Tag; custom fields are not included. While a bulk change runs, a status line on the page reads Changing records… N of M checked.; choose Stop remaining changes to stop sending the rest, and the line then says how many were updated (Dismiss clears it). Press Escape or choose the close button on the bar to clear the selection.
Preview from the board#
On Deals, choose Open preview on a card to open a side panel while the board stays live. Click the card itself to open the full record instead.
Hover a card to show a pencil button just left of Open preview. Choose it to open Edit deal—the same window as New deal, prefilled with Deal name, Stage, Deal owner, Deal value, and Tag (Company and Close date stay create-only; change the close date on the record). Save changes writes only fields you changed; choosing it with nothing changed, or cancelling, closes without writing. Members who cannot write deals still get preview but no pencil.
The preview is read-first: you can review the name and Highlights (Stage, Deal value, Deal owner, and Close date), recent Activity and Tasks, Emails, Meetings, Notes, and Files when the deal has some, plus the Associated contact (it reads “No contact linked yet.” when there is none) and Fulfillment when one exists. You can add a task from the preview when your access allows; adding a note or file there works only once the deal already has one—otherwise open the full record. Move previous or next through deals in the current stage under your active search, sort, and filters. Tasks and notes open in their usual dialogs. Use expand or View all when you need the full record.
Keep the next step attached#
Under the deal’s name, quick actions offer Compose email plus icon buttons for New note, New task, and More actions (Upload file, Delete deal). Compose email needs a Google account you own connected under Settings; without one, the button stays visible but disabled.
Use Overview for highlights, Activity for the timeline, and Notes, Tasks, and Files for related work. The record also has Emails and Meetings tabs—the same set as a contact. Your access determines whether you can change the deal.
Activity groups entries under Upcoming, This week (from your week’s first day), and earlier months, and includes the linked contact’s emails and meetings along with this deal’s notes, tasks, and record updates. Meetings uses the same Activity-style feed as a contact—who had it, when, and its card—under Upcoming, This week, and earlier months. On Overview, each section’s View all opens its tab, and Tasks, Notes, and Files have add buttons when your access allows. On Files, choose Upload to attach files and click a file to download it. Files take the same types and 25 MB-per-file limit as a contact’s Files tab: a larger file is refused with That file is too large — 25 MB at most. and an unsupported type with That kind of file cannot be uploaded. Uploading and deleting files need write access to Deals. Deleting a file removes it for everyone in the workspace and cannot be undone.
Every tab except Overview shows a count beside its name. Overview previews up to 5 emails, 5 tasks, 3 notes, and 3 files; the tab shows the rest. Counts above 99 read 99+, and a dash means the count isn’t available, for example when email or calendar isn’t connected. On Activity, filter to Meetings, Emails, Messages, Calls, Tasks, Notes, or Record updates; see Notes and Tasks for working with them. If the deal has no contact, Emails and Meetings say No contact linked and ask you to pick one under Record details. The arrows at the top of the record step through the other deals in the same stage, in manual board order, and New fulfillment starts a delivery checklist for the deal (Open fulfillment when one is running). See Fulfillment.
On the deal record, Record details shows the primary fields first (Stage, Deal owner, Deal value, Close date, Contact, and Tag). Choose View all fields to reveal custom fields, then Show fewer fields to collapse them again. If a value is truncated, open it to read or edit in a popover—Alt+Enter while editing also works. Rename the deal by editing its name above Record details.
The record also has a Messages tab for texts, calls, and voicemails. Imported history stays after disconnect, with the same line privacy; the Reply button is unavailable and the Messages tab explains that the app is disconnected. Once connected, Reply in Quo (or Reply in Dialpad) opens the newest conversation you are allowed to view. See Quo and Dialpad.
Overview also shows Ari’s summary above Highlights—use Ask Ari to write the first one, then Refresh to update it. The summary appears only on the full record, not in the board preview. Owners and admins choose what Ari may read under Settings → Ari → Summaries.
Remove an opportunity#
Deleting a deal removes it for everyone in the workspace and cannot be undone, along with its notes and files. Tasks linked to the deal are kept; they just lose the link to it. If the opportunity still matters as history, update its stage instead of deleting it.
To delete, open the deal, choose More actions → Delete deal under its name, and confirm with Delete deal. You need write access to Deals. To remove several at once, select them on the board and use More → Delete. Deleting a deal also deletes its fulfillment checklists, and the confirmation says so: “Its fulfillments are deleted too.” (“Their fulfillments are deleted too.” when you delete several).