Configuring Stages
In pipeline mode each stage carries more than a label. These settings are what turn a board into a forecast.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Commercial:
- Boards & Pipeline — the console, where stages are configured
- Pipelines — the board definitions
What a stage holds
- The value it matches in the status field, and a readable label.
- A probability — the likelihood of winning from this stage.
- A forecast category.
- Won and lost flags.
- A sort order — the left-to-right sequence.
Probability
Each stage's probability weights the value of everything in it, so the pipeline can be totalled as a weighted figure rather than a raw sum.
Set these from your own history, not from instinct. Most organisations overstate early-stage probability considerably — if a third of your qualified opportunities close, the qualified stage is 33%, however optimistic the team feels.
A pipeline weighted with honest numbers is a forecast. Weighted with hopeful ones it is a wish list that senior people will plan around.
The won and lost flags
These mark the terminal stages. They matter because they tell the system which records have concluded, which is what makes conversion rates and stage history meaningful.
Mark them explicitly. A pipeline where nothing is flagged as won cannot tell you your win rate, and every stage looks permanently full.
Always have a lost stage
Teams sometimes leave lost deals in their last active stage rather than moving them, because it feels like admitting defeat. The effect is a pipeline that only grows and a forecast that is nonsense.
Make losing explicit and easy, and if you can, record why — that is the most useful sales data most organisations never collect.
Forecast category
Groups stages for reporting — the usual split being what is committed, what is upside and what is early. It lets a manager report a commit figure separately from a weighted total, which are different questions.
Keep the stages few
Five or six. Every stage is a judgement somebody must make about every deal, and a ten-stage pipeline produces cards that sit in the wrong stage because moving them accurately is more work than anybody will do.
The test is whether each stage has a clear entry criterion somebody could apply without asking.
Do not change stages casually once running
Stage history is recorded against stage values. Renaming or removing stages makes historical comparison harder, so get the set right early and change it rarely.
Worked example
A team runs five stages: Qualified (20%), Proposal (40%), Negotiation (70%), Won (100%, won flag) and Lost (0%, lost flag). The probabilities came from two years of their own outcomes, which put Qualified considerably lower than the team had assumed. The weighted forecast has since been within about 10% each quarter.
Recommendations
- Set probabilities from your own history.
- Always flag won and lost stages.
- Make losing explicit and record the reason.
- Five or six stages, each with a clear entry criterion.