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.

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!

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

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.

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.

My name is Jason Montoya and I own a marketing company in Atlanta Georgia. I volunteered to write this post for PipelineDeals because I wanted to share my experience and thoughts on the app and the company due to the recent updates to the app. Over the years, I have referred many people to PipelineDeals and so during the last update, several people have come to me asking what I think of the update and the direction of PipelineDeals as a company. I wanted to share my understanding with everyone that is using the app, or considering using it, to give them a better understanding of the product and, more importantly, the company that built it. PipelineDeals did not solicit this message but I feel strongly enough about it to share my thougths.

I love simplicity. In 2008 I was using an extremely simple CRM. It stored my contacts and allowed me write notes on them. For a time, this served me well, but I found myself in need of an app with more resources available at hand than the simple CRM I was using. At that point, I had to ask myself, how do I find the right app that has the simplicity a business owner, like myself, needs without all the unnecessary functionality and bad user experience? I happened to stumble upon PipelineDeals and it was exactly what I was looking for. After pulling the trigger to use it, there was no turning back. At the time, I don't believe I truly understood why I liked it so much, but what I did know was that the team managed to build an app I would have built, had I ever decided to developed a CRM. The functionality, the experience, the flexibility. It was all there a step before I thought of it.

PipelineDeals has a slogan and it is stated as the following: "PipelineDeals is the easiest way for your sales team to organize your sales pipeline and grow your business." That's what they do and that is what they do well. If you explore around their website you will find some great information about the company. While the homepage does a great job telling you why their app is so great, what I value most is who is the company that is doing this. How does their fundamentals line up against mine?

"We believe in hard work, honesty, and people-centered software. Our team has been developing, delivering, and zealously supporting the PipelineDeals sales CRM solution for five years. We’re passionate about creating software that people want to use and share. We love what we do, and we want our customers to love us for helping them close more deals."

They have detailed where they stand, the direction they are going and this a company I want on my team - a team that handles my sales management software. As you decide to use this app, as you decide to work with it over the years, what matters most is not the functionality, problem or a bug, but what really matters is the direction the company is going and how they handle the bumps in the road. Business is organic and moving and you can never fully expect what it will bring you. Change is usually hard, but if we never changed, we would still be etching our sales numbers on stone tablets!

Change is great with great vision and understanding, both of which I believe are exhibited by PipelineDeals and are in line with mine.

Are they in line with yours?

So, what do you want to do with a PipelineDeals native app?

We are evaluating ideas that will really help those PipelineDeals customers who are on the road and accessing PipelineDeals on their iPhone. Don't worry, we know we have to get to Android and Blackberry too. iPhone is just first as most of our user base access the application via the iPhone today. And yes, it is safe to assume that the basic features around Companies, People, Deals, Agenda and the Calendar will be included. So the question for you is what feature would you love to see in an app from PipelineDeals?

Let us know in the comments below!

Customized Task and Event types are now live!

In the past, all accounts shared a handful of basic Task & Event types. Now you can add as many as you want and name them anything you need. Account administrators can get busy customizing these by visiting the Settings menu >> Admin >> Task and Event Types. 

This new customization gives you more flexibility to personalize and prioritize the activities you schedule. For example, you might want to create a new type called “Face to Face” or “High Priority Call.” You can also use these customized types in Task Templates for People and Deals. These templates are predefined lists that allow you to assign a whole series of Tasks all at once.

Measure your team’s productivity

With custom Task and Event types, you can track and build goals around any type of activity. For example, you might want to attend four networking events a month. You can create a custom Task and Event type for “Networking” and select that type when you schedule these events. Now you can quickly report on how many networking events you’ve scheduled and attended.

In the screenshot below, you can see that we’ve renamed Fax, Todo and Appointment to High Priority, Networking, and Face-to-Face.

After using these custom Task and Event types, you can visit the See All Tasks Report to track how many have been recorded. You can quickly adjust the report to review any task type—for example how many open Face-to-Face Meetings are scheduled, as shown in the screenshot below.

Furthermore, you can create Goals based on Task and Event types. In this example, I’ve created a goal to attend at least 48 networking events this year. So far I’ve been to three, so I’ll have to pick up the pace.

We hope you’ll find this new feature useful. Let us know what you think!

How does it work?

We took the familiar look of custom fields for Deals and added the same functionality to People. Account administrators can add up to 25 specific custom fields for People at any time.

It’s important to note that these custom fields apply to People only. They do not correspond to any custom fields you may already have for Deals. Because these fields are defined by the Account Administrator, they are the same for every Person and can be made mandatory. Administrators can get started by visiting the Settings Menu >> Admin >> Person Custom Fields.

Custom fields will display prominently on People Profile pages, right below the Notes section. 

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 contact list. 

Keep up the great feedback!

We designed PipelineDeals to be simple and easy to use. Our goal has always been to provide a smart alternative to bloated CRMs like ACT and SalesForce. They have hundreds of rarely used data fields, and a recent export from Outlook confirms they still list “Car Phone” and “Pager” as standard contact fields!

But simplicity is only the beginning of making PipelineDeals work the way you need it to, and we’re very happy to add this new element of customization. We also plan to support including these new custom fields in the People List View, so stay tuned.

569,543 total records updated in a week's time.

That breaks down as:

327,450 people records.
179,205 note records.
62,888 deal records. 

One very interesting thing is the degree to which People get touched relative to other elements of a deal. This is one number that brings home the fact that selling is a "people" business first.

February is turning out to be busy for business who use PipelineDeals. Perhaps we need to hire some sort of economist to see if this can be some sort of leading economic indicator of future business revenue. Or, probably not, let's just focus on how we can make the application faster and better...