Once you have a credible lead for a project, create an opportunity on Cloud and kick-start the business process of quoting and securing the project.
If you are new to Cloud and creating your first opportunity, consider reading this article before you proceed.
You need the "Create new opportunity" permission in the "Opportunities" permission group or be a member of a group that has it to create project opportunities.
To create an opportunity, go to the "Opportunities" tab in the left navigation menu and click "New Opportunity."
Creating a project opportunity on Cloud has three parts.
#1 - Opportunity details
First, enter an opportunity name and set a priority.
Required details
These are the details you require for creating opportunities on Cloud:
Building type - select one of Residential or Commercial.
Salesperson - select the salesperson responsible for quoting and sending the proposal to the customer.
Project type - select one of New Construction, Retrofit, Remodel, Service, or Prewire Only.
Market sector - select a market sector. You can create more under Settings > Opportunity > Market Sectors.
You can assign an engineer from the "Engineer" dropdown. You can remove or change the engineer when you create the project.
Reporting and Analytics
These are details that will make for better reporting and Analytics on Cloud:
Budget - the customer's budget for the project.
Lead source - select how the lead was generated. You can create more source types if needed.
Estimated close date - select a tentative close date in the top-right corner of the modal.
Quoting
These are the details that can help you during quoting:
Quote template - select a template for quoting with the payment schedule, proposal style, and items and labor preloaded when you create quotes for the opportunity. You can create these templates under Settings > Opportunity > Quote Templates.
Square meters - the carpet area or built-up area of the work site, depending on what applies to the opportunity.
Quote type - select from Design/Build or Bid/Spec.
Fulfillment location - applies to multi-site companies that execute projects from multiple offices, where labor rates differ.
Learn more about fulfillment locations to see if you need to use them in your opportunities.
If applicable, select an account or a contact in the "Referred by" field.
#2 - Account details
Here, enter the full name of the account. All account details will auto-populate if the account exists on Cloud.
For a new account, enter the name, email, phone number for the account and the associated contact, and the site address.
Cloud leverages the Google Places API. So, if you type the first few characters of the address, you can select from the addresses shown if the site is listed as a Google Place.
You can import accounts from a CRM or another database into Cloud and avoid entering account details manually.
Learn more about managing accounts on Cloud.
#3 - Tax information
Here, you need to specify whether all products and labor will be taxed using specific tax rates or taxed individually.
You need to have the "Manage quote taxes and tax settings" permission in the "Opportunities" permissions group, or you need to be a member of a group that has it, to change the tax method.
Check out this article about setting up and using taxes to understand tax-related functionality on Cloud, then choose how to specify taxes.
Click "Create" to create the opportunity.
If you have the address-validity check enabled on your Cloud account, Cloud may prompt you to enter all required billing and site address details, or it may not let you create the opportunity. This also applies when you want to update an opportunity's addresses.
Check out this article for more details.
After you create the project opportunity, you will see it under the "New" stage on the Kanban board.
If you want to add or update any details specified when creating the opportunity, click the opportunity tile in the Kanban view. You'll see the Opportunity Details view, where you can make changes as needed.