Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

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Posted on by X-Ray Visions

I'm new to the forum but have been referring to it a lot the past week, with some invaluable advice, so thank you to those who contribute.

I am currently undertaking some customisations to a trial of D365 Sales Professional for a client to prove this is superior to their current CRM solution. I have a question relating to the out-of-the-box sales opportunity stages.

Default is: Qualify - Develop - Propose - Close. I would like to amend and add to these stages but within the option set, the 'customizable' is set to 'false'. I believe this is because I am usuing a "Managed" solution.

As I may not be using the correct terminology, I have included a number of screen shots for clarity.

So it's the opportunity stages as highlighted in the blue box in my first image below that I am trying to add/edit and I have found the relevant field and included that in the opportunity but this doesn't seem to be linked to the opportunity stage, as default was blank. FYI any "personal" details shown are false and made up.

If I navigate to the Global "Option Sets" and find: "opportunity_salesstage" then the standard options for editing aren't available.

I am not able to edit the 'Managed Properties' either.

When selecting "Show Dependencies" I then have this, that I assume is the same option set, just worded slightly differently:

Image 4.5

And when opening up the "Sales Stage" I just cycle back to this which can of course can be accessed directly from the Opportunity Form:

I also appreciate that this is also linked to the Process: "Opportunity Sales Process", that I haven't touched as yet, this is "customizable" though, assuming that I wouldn't be able to add another process that would display correctly until the new/edited options are present in the option set? Also, as this is "Activate" would "Deactivating" this make any difference to the relevant option set, i.e. would I then be able to edit them?

My main questions are:

1. Can I edit the out-of-the-box functionality somehow?

2. Or, do I need to create the sales stages from scratch, along with the process flow?

3. Finally, if option 2. is the answer and this may seem like a stupid question but where do I find the opportunity sales process on an editable form, therefore, how would a newly created opportunity process flow and option set know that it needs to be displayed where it is? Just like the customisations of the forms allows you to place a field where you like?

Thanks in advance for anyone's help.

Ashley

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Answers (3)

X-Ray Visions 5 on at

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RE: Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

Hi Lucas

Thanks for this and would have been the correct answer but I managed to create my own process and then link my new Pipeline Phase to directly communicate with the Opportunity Process Flow.

The CRM is live for my client and working very well, so I won't be changing it now but this is good for future reference.

Thanks again
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Lucas.boaventura 35 on at

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RE: Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

Hi Ashley,

I had the same problem. It´s a bug in dynamics. To edit the options of sales category stage, enter the manually URL:

(your envirolment URL)/tools/systemcustomization/optionset/optionset.aspx?appSolutionId=%7bFD140AAF-4DF4-11DD-BD17-0019B9312238%7d&id=%7b334EA217-AA70-4342-8EAF-E41D682C66BB%7d&_CreateFromType=7100&_CreateFromId=%7bFD140AAF-4DF4-11DD-BD17-0019B9312238%7d

Worked for me. More information in:

community.dynamics.com/.../what-happened-to-the-stage-category-option-set

I hope I've helped.

Regards, Lucas Boaventura

from Brazil
X-Ray Visions 5 on at

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RE: Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

Hi

For those that may come across this thread and not seen a subsequent reply, I did manage to work out a solution myself.

The out-of-the-box "Pipeline Phase" options are not fit for a number of purposes and this is identified as a 'Category' under the two Business Process Flows that are relevant to the Opportunity pipeline. As identified in this thread.

I created my own Pipeline Phase stages in the Global Data Set and then created the field in the Opportunity Form. I marked the original "Pipeline Phase" field to "Pipeline Phase Do Not Use" also subsequently removing this from all system reports and replacing it with my new one.

My new Pipeline Phase has all the stages, (eight in total) that I now require using the steps that have been kindly provided above. I did continue to use the Category option but collated more than one step into a single category. The category option as stated is the now-defunct "Pipeline Phase Do Not Use" option so there probably is no real reason to do this step but I thought it won't affect anything if I did this. I then ensured that the first "Data Step" included my new "Pipeline Phase" instructing the user to update this as they progress the Opportunity up the pipeline.

It would be ideal if my new Pipeline Phase could directly communicate with the Opportunity Process Flow but I can't see a solution whether another Process Flow, or not accomplish this one.

Regardless, this is a lot better than using the Pipeline Phases that D365 proved and is a workable solution.

Thanks
X-Ray Visions 5 on at

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RE: Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

Dear Wahaj and Hao

Many thanks for both of your very prompt answers, very helpful and marked them both as verified but we're not quite there.

Within the "Opportunity Sales Process" I have added the stages that I needed and these now display on a new Opportunity. However, there isn't a relevant "Category" to select in the "Opportunity Sales Process", if I leave that blank then any subsequent report using the field "Pipeline Phase" is left blank.

If I use one of the 'spare' categories in there, such as "Research" this then populates the "Pipeline Phase" field but with a preceding number that isn't relevant to the stage of the pipeline.

The "Pipeline Phase" is used for dashboards and various reports and when you open the field properties it states: "Shows the current phase in the sales pipeline for the opportunity. This is updated by a workflow."

The "category" options must be created somewhere, because there are more options than the original Option Set I mentioned in my first message. Identify, Research, Resolve, Approval are in addition to Qualify, Develop, Propose, Close.

I also discovered that there is a seperate Business Process Flow for the "Lead to Opportunity Sales Process" too, I copied the new stages I created on "Opportunity Sales Process" to this and they both visibly look the same but they won't act the same for reporting purposes because of this missing "Category" which denotes the "Pipeline Phase".

Am I missing something very obvious here?

Many thanks again

Ashley
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LuHao 40,872 on at

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RE: Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

Hi Ashley,

1. Can I edit the out-of-the-box functionality somehow?

- "Sales Stage" field is not editable, we cannot edit it. But it has nothing to do with Business Process Flow.

2. Or, do I need to create the sales stages from scratch, along with the process flow?

- Just open "Opportunity Sales Process", then edit, add or delete stages.

Any changes you make to the "Opportunity Sales Process" will not affect the "Sales Stage" field, as they are not related in the first place.

3. where do I find the opportunity sales process on an editable form, therefore, how would a newly created opportunity process flow and option set know that it needs to be displayed where it is? Just like the customisations of the forms allows you to place a field where you like?

- Go to Settings > Processes, change view to "Business Process Flows", then you will find "Opportunity Sales Process".

Each Business Process Flow is also an entity, and the field that identify its stage is "Active Stage", it is in the "Opportunity Sales Process" entity instead of Opportunity entity.

In Opportunity, we can use the "Pipeline Phase" field to represent the current "Opportunity Sales Process" stage, but it is only a text field for display, and cannot be used to switch and control stage.
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Wahaj Rashid 11,319 on at

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RE: Sales Opportunity Stages - how to customise?

Hi,

Thank you for your query.

Please note, Business Process Stage and Stage Categories are 2 different things. In the screenshot, blue box shows Stages from Business Process Flow (not the stage category).

As per your requirement, you need to update the Stages in the Business Process Flow.

Here are steps:

Go to Advanced Settings -> Processes -> and choose Business Process Flows view.

Open the Opportunity Sales Process,

Now you can rename the Stages or Add new.

For example, I add a new stage called Approval.

Similarly, I renamed the Develop stage to Finance Approval:

Validate and Update the flow to reflect changes. Also, if you have de-activated the process, you need to Activate it.

The answer to you last question is No, deactivating the flow has no effect on stage category option set.

You can read more about customizing Business Process flows:

docs.microsoft.com

docs.microsoft.com