Pipelines Description:
Pipelines can sound very intricate when hearing about them for the first time. They can be made complicated or very simple. There are an infinite number of ways a pipeline can be set up.
Every organization should have pipelines. Every organization's pipeline will not have the same objective. Some organizations will use pipelines to simply capture metrics, others might use pipelines to track a process. Pipelines can be linear and self-contained or can be intertwined with other pipelines.
Here are some different examples of what we can use pipelines for:
1. Tracking how many people have participated in different events or purchased a product.
This is a pipeline in which opportunities (contacts) will primarily stay in the same stage of the pipeline. This pipeline is strictly for tracking metrics via the Dashboard.
2. Tracking donations from new or pre-existing donors.
This pipeline can assist you in tracking donations. For this style of pipeline, you will be using the lead value field within the opportunity settings.
3. Running opportunities through a process.
This can be a very elaborate pipeline but can also free up a lot of work on your end. We like to use the example of buying a car. There are steps that go into the process. You must research the car you would like, find a deal, finance/pay in cash, and more steps throughout the process. This car example is like this style of pipeline. When you add rules to this style of pipeline you can take so much work out of your hands. Contacts can receive sequences, add notes automatically to there contact, go into entirely new pipelines, and way more.
These are just three of the ways pipelines can benefit your organization. Below you will find knowledge library links that will help you out when creating pipelines. Do note that creating quality pipelines requires you to get creative. Think of statistics you would like to gather, or a process that you would like to automate.
Pipelines Links:
How to Create an Opportunity in a Pipeline
How to Place a Contact into a Pipeline
Dashboard Description:
The first thing you see when logging into MAPS, is the Dashboard. Without setting up pipelines or tasks you do not get value out of the Dashboard. However, once you have created and started using pipelines, you can see the overall health of your organization. This is where you can view the metrics for metrics-based pipelines or view where people are in a pipeline that follows a process that contacts in your organization go through. You can view how many opportunities are assigned to what users, how many opportunities are considered open, won, lost, or abandoned, how many opportunities have gone through each stage, and a percentage of how many opportunities are won.
Once contacts begin to flow into the pipeline, the dashboard will look more filled out. You can log in, view the dashboard, and get a big picture view of how the organization is doing.
Additionally, if you use Tasks as a way of keeping track of "tasks" that need to be completed in your organization, these will be shown on the Dashboard. You can filter by user and status.
Dashboard Links:
How to Understand the Difference Between Sales & Metrics Funnel Charts