PipelineDeals Update: Last Name is no Longer Required

We have made a small but important change to how People are validated.

In the past, we required a Last Name when creating a new Person. We are removing this requirement to make it easier for your team to add new relationships into PipelineDeals even if limited information is known. If you add a Person without a Full Name then we will display “Unknown.” This will allow the Person to be updated once the Person's name is known.

This update will also make it easier to manage and detect duplicates. Going forward, when you add new Person via the Add Person form or People through a CSV import we will check all People you have permission to view to ensure that the Person or People are unique. If you attempt to add a new Person with the same email address as another Person that already exists in the account then it will be flagged as a duplicate. Of course, if you decide you still want to save it, you’ll be able to.

Google Contacts Sync Changes: Action Required before May 25th

We’re about to make a change that will simplify how Contacts sync between Google and PipelineDeals.

Here’s how it will work:

1.  You will select one single Google Contact Group, and any
     contacts that are listed in that group will show up in
     PipelineDeals.
2.  Any contact that you create in PipelineDeals will
     automatically be added to that special contact group in
     Google.
3.  In addition, any contact that is associated with any deal will continue to show in PipelineDeals
     (even if it is not in your selected contact group).

That's it!

You need to do one thing before May 25th
Please take a moment to select the special contact group in PipelineDeals. You might need to create the contact group in Google first. You can call it anything you want like CRM or PipelineDeals or Clients or whatever makes sense. Then, in PipelineDeals, open:

Settings > Profile > Google Sync Settings

You will see a selection box called: "Add PipelineDeals contacts to Google Contact Group". Simply select the correct group there!

If you don't make your selections before May 25th, then we will set your selection to the system group "My Contacts".

No more complicated checkboxes
Below is the interface you’ll see when you select your Google Contact Group. All those other checkboxes below that we currently use to determine what contacts to show in PipelineDeals are going away. So don’t even worry about them!

Before

After

What happens on May 25th?
On Friday, May 25, we will be making a release for this change, and then we will be making sure that your contacts are selected based on this new simple method.

We will automatically make sure that the contacts in your PipelineDeals account are added to your selected Google Contacts group.

After that, if you want any of those contacts to stop showing up in PipelineDeals, simply go into Google Contacts, and remove that contact from that special group. Unless the contact is listed on a deal, then the next time you login or select "Refresh from Google" in PipelineDeals, that contact will no longer show in PipelineDeals!

And, any time you create new contacts in PipelineDeals, those contacts will be added to that special Google Contact Group.

We hope you’ll agree that this process is much easier. As always, we welcome your feedback. Thank you for being a customer of PipelineDeals!

New Feature Available Now: Company Custom Fields

We've released an update and Company Custom Fields are available now. To add Company Custom Fields, click Settings, then Admin and then Company Custom Fields. You can create up to 25 custom fields to track special attributes and details for the companies and accounts you do business with.

To learn more about the new feature, visit http://bit.ly/I8dOwc.

Company Custom Fields Available Soon

Ever since we launched people and deal custom fields we have received numerous suggestions to provide these powerful options for Companies too. Well, we listened. We’re excited to announce that the Company Custom Fields are coming soon!

How do they work?

Just like Deal and People custom fields, account administrators will be able to create up to 25 specific custom fields for Companies.

Because these fields are defined by the account administrator, they are the same for every Company and can be made mandatory. Administrators can get started by visiting the Settings Menu > Admin > Company Custom Fields. 

Fields can be any of the following types:

1.  Numeric fields can be used to capture items such as number of employees, locations, years in
     business or other numeric values related to your companies.
2.  Text fields are used to capture free form text. For example you could record a stock ticker
     symbol, shipping address, or SIC code.
3.  Currency fields are used to capture data that have a monetary value. For example, you could
     track estimated revenues, market capitalization, or annual sales.
4.  Picklist fields allow you to specify a list of predefined values for a user to pick from. Examples:
     Industry, Competitors, Territory, or Type.
5.  Date fields allow you to capture important dates related to your companies. 

Custom fields will display prominently on Company Profile pages, right below the Notes section. That should do it for custom fields across the PipelineDeals application - now get back to selling!

Custom fields will also appear in CSV exports and be available for importing, as long as they are created in your account before you upload a list of Companies.

Keep sending us suggestions!

The team is putting the finishing touches on list views that will support People, Deal and Company Custom fields. As the project matures we’ll be publishing updates here on the blog.

Coming Soon: People Merging

Coming Soon: People Merging

We will soon be launching a long requested and highly anticipated feature: people merging. You can now combine two duplicate people records into one.

Have you ever done a search in your account and found a duplicate? Or, discovered that a separate entry was accidentally misspelled? Now you’ll be able to combine them without having to worry about losing notes, documents, or any contact details. 

Here’s how it works

Here is the use case we are aiming to solve: In your PipelineDeals people database you find that you have two copies of the same individual: Jack Ryan and Jack Ryans. In this case you know these are the same person and there is no need to have two separate records for Jack Ryan. After looking at the two records choose the winner. Usually it makes sense to pick the most complete record.

Here is how we to merge those two records in five simple steps.

1.  Click on the person record you and to keep - in this case Jack Ryan. You will land on Jack Ryan’s profile page.

2.  On Jack Ryan’s profile page for the winner click the Actions button > Merge. 

3. Search for the duplicate record you found earlier, in this case Jack Ryans.

4.  Finalize the merge. The record going away will be on the left and the one here to stay on the right. Be sure to validate what you are doing as there is no “un-merge.” Merging is forever.

5.  Complete the merge and click the “Merge people” button at the bottom of the page.

Thats it! We’ll take care of the rest instantly and the “here to stay” record will have a complete history including all the Notes, Tasks, Events, Deals, and Documents from the record that was merged.

Ground rules for merging people

Merging two records sounds very easy at first, but once you dig into it merging people is pretty complicated. We have had to establish a few basic ground rules to keep in mind when merging people. Here are these ground rules:

1.  The "going away" record will be merged into the "here to stay" record.
2.  People records with multiple email addresses will first populate work, then home, then other on
     the "here to stay" record. After three email addresses, each additional email address will
     then be appended in a note. The same goes for phone numbers.
3.  Any data that would be merged into an already populated position such as phone, email, other
     addresses, custom fields will be appended as a note to the remaining record for safekeeping.
4.  All documents, tasks, events, notes and deals will be transferred to the "here to stay" record.

Finally, please remember, merges cannot be undone.

We will launch this useful feature soon. Keep watching this blog for updates. You can also follow us on Twitter, friend us on Facebook or add us to a circle on Google+. We’re always interested in hearing what you think so please join the conversation.