An "Opportunity Stage" indicates the progress of the opportunities you are working on. On Cloud, you can create multiple opportunity stages to track the progress of opportunities.
Opportunity stages appear at the top in the Kanban view of the Opportunities page.
In the List view, the opportunity stage appears in the "Stage" column.
System state
System states are the built-in progress levels of opportunities. Cloud has 4 different system states for opportunities.
System state | Description |
Open | The opportunity is not closed (won or lost), and you are working to win it. |
On Hold | The opportunity is open, but you have decided you can't do anything with it or want to wait. |
Won | Congrats! You won the opportunity and can proceed with the project. |
Lost | You didn't win this opportunity. |
Default stages
Cloud provides some default opportunity stages based on your responses when you set up your account. You can customize the stages to fit your organization's needs.
Each of the default stages is mapped to a system state.
Customize stages
You can customize the default opportunity stages as needed. To customize them, go to "Settings > Opportunity > Opportunity Stages" in the left navigation menu.
Add new stages
To add a new stage:
1/ Click the "New opportunity stage" above the stage rows.
2/ In the new row, do the following:
a/ Add a name for the stage and map it to a system state.
b/ Map it to a stage group if you enabled the Stage Groups functionality.
c/ Set the default probability for the stage and assign a color to it.
Cloud will save the new stage.
Update stages
To update an existing stage, change the name, system state mapping, stage group, default probability, and color in the stage row.
Reorder stages
Hover over the 6 dots in the leftmost corner of the stage row to move the stage up or down.
Delete stages
To delete a stage, click the "Delete" icon in the rightmost corner of the stage row, and confirm the deletion.
Here are a few things you need to know about deleting opportunity stages.
You cannot delete stages that are mapped to the "Won" and "Lost" system states.
You cannot delete a stage if one or more opportunities are currently assigned to it. You can move the opportunities to a different stage and delete the stage.
You cannot delete a stage if one or more archived opportunities are currently assigned to it. You can unarchive the opportunities, move them to a different stage, and delete the stage.
You cannot delete the last stage mapped to a system state. For example, if "Checking Requirements" and 'Quoting" are two stages mapped to the "Open" system state, you cannot delete the "Quoting" stage.
Stage groups
You can use a "Stage Group" to group multiple closely related stages. For example, "Checking Requirements" and 'Quoting" are two stages under the "In Progress" stage group.
Using stage groups is optional. If you want to use it, set "Opportunity Stage Groups" to ON and click "New opportunity stage group" to add stage groups as you would add the stages.
The following screenshot shows two stage groups, each with two stages.
When stage groups are enabled, you see stages under the relevant stage groups in the Kanban view on the Opportunities page.
If you want to use Stage Groups, add the stage groups first, then add the custom stages and map them to the groups.