Logical criteria that restrict moving deals between stages based on specific property values

[mcclured]

~~~UPDATE~~~

Workaround/creative solution discovered:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kyleanthonyjepson_hubspottipsandtricks-hubspot-crm-ugcPost-6898988533...

~~~~~~~~~~~

HubSpot needs a way to be able to automatically enforce that certain criteria have been met before a deal is allowed to advance to the next stage. These criteria could be true/false, yes/no, value based, date based, etc.

The current pipeline setup settings only allow known/unknown to be required as part of advancing a deal to the next stage using the "Update Stage Properties" feature.

Deal Pipeline Settings Page

For example, if I have a property called "Qualified Prospect" that is a Yes/No value, I want to require a Yes before a deal is allowed to advance past a certain stage.  The current settings only allow me to require that that property be known, but it could be Yes or No and the deal would still advance. 

The only way to do this currently is through a series of complicated workflows, but these are not ideal because it doesn't provide the salesperson with immediate feedback that their new stage was disallowed. 

Another example as suggested in Related Idea #1 below would be to prevent stages from being skipped by requiring that a deal already be in the preceeding stage before it can be advanced to the next stage. This is not possible to do via workflow because the prior stage is overwritten when the new stage triggers the workflow.

This feature would work perfectly alongside the current setup feature to require certain properties as part of each deal stage.

Related ideas:

1. https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Restrict-moving-deals-between-stages/idi-p/324338
2. https://community.hubspot.com/t5/CRM/Mandatory-properties-on-Deals-get-skipped-when-creating-a-deal/...

[BBush1]

Looking to solve this right now. great workaround for now.. idealy same concept would work on tickets and being able to prevent skipping steps and restricted based on property values. 

[NCross1]

I have defined properties against our sales stages, these properties are a check-in to hold the sellers accountable for ensuring general sales disciplines have been met before we move an opportunity from 10% to 20%, as an example.

At this time provided a user has selected an answer in the drop-down box and entered something in the free form field they can progress the sales stage forward or backwards. This is NOT IDEAL as this bypasses the very purpose of having a discipline to the sales stages and their associated exit gates.

Therefore, I wonder if anyone has defined a logical criteria workflow that will restrict moving deals between stages unless specific property values have been met. I have considered this to be as simple as:
-If all fields says ‘Yes’ and the free form text has a single character utilised - allow progress to sales stage selected
OR
- If a ‘No’ is selected from a drop down option but the free form field has more than 3 words then the free form box can override the other criteria - allow progress to sales stage selected

Happy to connect and talk offline if easiest? I appreciate any assistance.

[PPokharkar]

Hello, 

Can we build a guardrail for the Pipeline to avoid deals from moving backwards? (Deal can skip the stage but cannot move backward).

Thank you very much.

Piyush

[NCross1]

I have not found a way to do this but inputted justification questions on each stage that need to be answered. I then use this to look at deal qualification and sales discipline coaching.

[LVarvashevich]

you can just create a rule using the workflow that moves the deal on the basis of the information in the properties. And remove the permissions to move the deal by sales reps.

[BennyP]

Hi @mcclured , thank you very much for sharing the workaround!

I've just implemented it in order to avoid deals skipping stages. Does require a few additional fields and workflows to be created but it does the trick for now. 

Feel free to reach out if anyone needs some help. I'll happily walk you through the things I've implemented and how it looks in practice 😄

[NCross1]

Hi BennyP

Would you be able to record a video with chapters so we can all refer and save you time? 

Perhaps the following would be REALLY useful to all

- Why would you want to put these checks in place?

- How to put the checks in place?

- What workflows might you consider?

- How to build the workflow (step by step)

- How to check workflow works