Qualification, the customer's calendar, and sign-off on the outcomeCopy Anchor Link

An opportunity already says what the deal is worth and where it stands in your pipeline. Five more things on the record answer questions those numbers cannot:

• Qualification — should we pursue this deal at all, and how hard?
• The customer's calendar — when the buyer plans to start, tender and sign, and for how much.
• Deal Narrative — the written case for the deal, in parts a reviewer can read one at a time.
• Qualification Approval — whether a new deal has to be approved (立项) before its stage or its won/lost call may change. Off unless your admin turns it on.
• Status Change Approval — whether somebody has to sign off before a deal is declared won or lost. Off unless your admin turns it on.

All of it sits on the opportunity's Details tab, in the Qualification, Sales Process and Deal Narrative sections.

Should we pursue it?Copy Anchor Link

A seller who cannot chase every deal triages. The Qualification section records that judgement:

• Will Bid — whether you intend to bid. Leave it empty while the decision is still open; an empty box and a no are different answers.
• Controllability — how much of the outcome you can influence: a deal you shaped from the start is High, an open tender you found last week is Low.
• Priority and Deal Level — how much attention the deal gets, and how much it matters to the business (Strategic, Key or Standard).
• Involves Subcontracting, with a Subcontracting Note — whether part of the work will be delivered by someone else. The margin often depends on it, so say so early.

None of this is Forecast Category. That field is worked out from the stage and feeds the forecast roll-up; these are judgements a person makes, and they do not change when the deal moves.

The customer's calendar, not your close dateCopy Anchor Link

Close Date is your forecast: one date, the day you expect to win. A considered purchase runs on the buyer's own calendar, which has more than one date in it, and that calendar is what you actually plan against:

• Customer Initiation Date — when the customer formally starts the project on their side.
• Expected Tender Date and Expected Tender Amount — when the tender is expected, and roughly how big it is.
• Expected Signing Date and Expected Signing Amount — when signature is expected, and for how much.

They sit in the Sales Process section and on the form's Forecast tab. Because they are separate from Close Date, a list can be built on them alone: the Tender This Quarter view lists open deals whose tender falls in the current quarter, whatever their close date says — see Opportunities › Standard list views.

The written case for the dealCopy Anchor Link

Description is one box, and a deal review needs more than one thing written down. The Deal Narrative section splits it:

• Customer Background — who the customer is and what matters to them.
• Project Background — what the project is and why it exists now.
• Risk Analysis — what could lose the deal or make it unprofitable.
• Payment Terms — the terms as they stand in the conversation. This is free text on purpose: a term still being negotiated rarely fits the fixed list a signed quote or contract uses.

Attachments still go on the record's files, as they always have.

Business lineCopy Anchor Link

Opportunity Type says how the deal relates to the customer — new business, an upgrade, a renewal, an expansion. Business Line is a separate question: what kind of business the deal is — Product, Professional Services, Consulting, Support & Maintenance or Other. The starter list is generic; your admin can replace it with your own lines of business.

Qualification approvalCopy Anchor Link

Some organisations approve a deal as a project — 立项 — before anyone commits to it. Until that approval, a new deal can be worked: log calls and meetings, write the narrative, record the customer's calendar, the amount and Will Bid. What waits is committing it: moving its stage and the won/lost call — whether that is closing it directly or asking for it with Requested Status. Quoting waits too: while the deal is Pending or Rejected, Generate Quote creates nothing (see Quotes). Will Bid stays open on purpose: whether you intend to bid is part of what the approver decides on, so record it before you ask. The Qualification Approval field records where that stands:

You never set this field yourself — it is filled in by the approval, and it is read-only.

While a deal is Pending or Rejected, its stage and Requested Status cannot change. To have it approved:

1. Tick Request Qualification Approval in the deal's Qualification section.
2. An approval request opens in the approval inbox. The deal is not locked while it waits: everything other than those two stays editable, so keep working it.
3. If it is approved, the deal is qualified for good. If it is rejected, the box is unticked and the deal stays held — tick it again when something changes to ask again.

Nothing changes for you unless your admin arms the gate. Out of the box every deal reads Not Required, and moving the stage and closing work exactly as they always have. Deals created before the gate was turned on are never held by it.

When both approvals are on, qualification comes first. A deal that is not yet qualified cannot ask for a status change either; once it is approved, closing works as the next section describes.

When closing a deal needs approvalCopy Anchor Link

Declaring a deal won or lost moves the forecast, commission and planning, and it cannot be taken back. Some organisations want sign-off on that moment, whatever the deal's size. The Status Change Approval field records where that stands:

You never set this field yourself — it is filled in by the approval, and it is read-only.

While a deal is Pending or Rejected, you cannot move its stage to Closed Won or Closed Lost directly. Instead:

1. Set Requested Status to Won or Lost, and fill in the Win Reason or Loss Reason as you would when closing.
2. An approval request opens in the approval inbox, and the deal is locked while it waits.
3. If it is approved, the stage moves to what you asked for. If it is rejected, your request is cleared and the deal stays open — you can request again when something changes.

Nothing changes for you unless your admin arms the gate. Out of the box every deal reads Not Required and closing works exactly as it always has. The amount-based Large Deal Approval is a separate gate and is not affected either way. Deals created before the gate was turned on keep closing freely — arming it affects new deals, and it never reopens a deal you already closed.

Tips for sales repsCopy Anchor Link

• ✅ Fill in Will Bid as soon as you have decided, and leave it empty until then. A pipeline review reads the empty ones as the decisions still to make.
• ✅ Record the customer's tender date the day you hear it. It is the date your bid team plans against, and Tender This Quarter can only list the deals that carry one.
• ✅ If closing is refused, look at Status Change Approval before asking anyone: Pending means set Requested Status instead, Rejected is a decision to talk about.
• ✅ Fill in the narrative, the customer's calendar and Will Bid before you request qualification approval. They are what the approver reads.
• ✅ If a stage move is refused, look at Qualification Approval: Pending means tick Request Qualification Approval (or wait for the request already open), Rejected is a decision to talk about.
• ⛔ Don't move Close Date to match the tender date. The two are different events, and the forecast depends on the close date being yours.

Tips for adminsCopy Anchor Link

• The Qualification and Deal Narrative sections stay visible on the Details tab even when every field in them is empty, so a seller sees what is still to be filled in.
• Controllability, Priority, Deal Level and Business Line are ordinary picklists — see Customization › Extending Objects to replace the starter values with your own grading scale and lines of business.
• The gate is off by default and is armed by changing the default value of the opportunity's Status Change Approval field from Not Required to Pending. From then on each new deal is born Pending; deals that already exist keep Not Required. Requests are routed to the holders of the sales_manager position, and the flow behind them is Opportunity Status Change Approval, listed in Administration › Automation.
• Staff that position before you arm the gate. An approval routed to an empty bench has nobody to decide it, and a deal waiting on it stays locked.
• A request written by an integration, with nobody signed in, still opens an approval. The refusal of a direct close, though, applies to edits made by signed-in users: a system write that sets the stage itself is not stopped.
• Qualification approval is armed the same way, on its own field: change the default value of the opportunity's Qualification Approval field from Not Required to Pending. Each new deal is then born Pending; deals that already exist keep Not Required. Requests go to the same sales_manager position, through the flow Opportunity Qualification Approval. The same signed-in-users boundary applies to what it holds.
• The two gates can be armed independently, and with both armed qualification comes first. Each keeps its own verdict field, and neither changes the amount-based Large Deal Approval.
• A deal carries one open approval at a time. If a deal grows past the large-deal threshold while its qualification request is waiting, the amount sign-off is not opened then; it opens on the deal's next save, and the qualification decision itself is one.