"Pause" or "On hold" deal status

Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko
Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko Member Posts: 5 VERIFIED MEMBER

It would be great to introduce "Pause / Oh Hold" deal status. Especially during COVID-19 pandemic when there is so much uncertainty and a lot of deals are truly on hold.

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  • Boris Tsibelman
    Boris Tsibelman Member Posts: 831 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited February 2022 #2

    @WW HQ Anna Kovtunenko  you can potentially create a new stage called "ON HOLD" and drop deals into there during these times. Then once everything goes back to normal - you can move them back to the stages accordingly.

  • Mike van der Valk
    Mike van der Valk Pipedrive Team Posts: 3,063 PIPEDRIVE TEAM
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    edited April 2020 #3

    @WW HQ Anna Kovtunenko  you can potentially create a new stage called "ON HOLD" and drop deals into there during these times. Then once everything goes back to normal - you can move them back to the stages accordingly.

    Was going to give that same suggestion! This is a quick win without any development needed from Pipedrive's side

  • Michael Roedeske
    Michael Roedeske Member Posts: 26 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited February 2022 #4

    We use such stage since the beginning of our implementation.

    But the problem with this, we loose the original stage where the lead was... 

    So I also would love to see a deal Status „on hold„ and best in combination with a timeframe too choose how long the deal should be on hold till it active automatic again.

  • Ric Vezza
    Ric Vezza Member Posts: 3 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited February 2022 #5

    We put into an ‘on hold‘ pipeline. All the details for the deal history  remain in the changelog. 

    We also have clients that make their ‘on hold‘ pipeline  a mirror of the main one and move in to the relative stage there

  • Mike van der Valk
    Mike van der Valk Pipedrive Team Posts: 3,063 PIPEDRIVE TEAM
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    edited April 2020 #6

    We use such stage since the beginning of our implementation.

    But the problem with this, we loose the original stage where the lead was... 

    So I also would love to see a deal Status „on hold„ and best in combination with a timeframe too choose how long the deal should be on hold till it active automatic again.

    @Michael Roedeske have you played around with the "rotting feature"? They can then stay in a stage and will visually show if they are kinda on hold..

    Also I've heard many customers say I don't want to keep "on hold" deals on the Pipeline. On hold for them is lost for now and they create a follow up activity for the future to start a new deal and try and drive it forward. Just sharing how some of the others have resolved it :) 

  • Pete Mahon
    Pete Mahon Member Posts: 7 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited April 2020 #7
    Ric Vezza said:

    We put into an ‘on hold‘ pipeline. All the details for the deal history  remain in the changelog. 

    We also have clients that make their ‘on hold‘ pipeline  a mirror of the main one and move in to the relative stage there

    This is the suggestion I would make as well. Complete data integrity and three clicks to move it!

  • Michael Enslin
    Michael Enslin Member Posts: 12 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited April 2022 #8

    I believe a combination of the above works. Have a stage in the pipeline for 'On hold'  and then move back into correct stage when you need it. Can also use custom fields for reasoning (w'why on hold?') and the show this in reporting. 

    Result:

    • Data integrity intact as you track days in each stage
    • You can filter out stages in new insights reporting, so could still see only active deals or
    • You can filter all other stages out and only look at 'on hold'
    • Single pane of glass to see all opportunities rather than jumping from pipeline to pipeline
  • Sven Hugo Joosten
    Sven Hugo Joosten Member Posts: 3 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited April 2022 #9

    we created a  dedicated stage gate for this within the pipeline.

  • Paul Minors
    Paul Minors Member Posts: 92 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited February 2022 #10

    For situations like this, I prefer to mark the deal as lost (and choose a reason like 'bad timing') but schedule an activity to call back in a month or two. You can then reopen the deal later if you successfully reengage. This helps keep your pipeline clear of dead weight without the need for a holding stage.

  • Scott Kay
    Scott Kay Member Posts: 6 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited July 2021 #11

    I think best practice is to mark something as lost - which it really is. It is lost to current self, although perhaps available to future self.

    While I think there are a few ways that others deal with it well (Lost with a specific reason, Rotting, Separate Pipeline for Lost, or Separate Holding Stage) - I think that Pipedrive could do something better to deal with this.

    Pipedrive methology (in their sales playbook) is to mark it as lost. 
    I think the difference between a 'someday' and a 'no way' could be somehow done a bit better in pipedrive.

    Although you don't know the difference necessarily between a 'someday' and 'no way' (3 years later the person who said no could come back) - I think there are times when you are quite certain that for whatever reason the person is never going to engage with you again and they should be able to be marked accordingly.


    Perhaps an Archive feature or something like that. 

    Creating a new pipeline is messy.

    And also I have SOO many losts on my pipeline (as I use mainly one) - it makes it almost better to have one pipeline per year.

  • Scott Kay
    Scott Kay Member Posts: 6 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited April 2022 #12

    remember you can also view all lost jobs - and with the activity in advance you could set a certain date (e.g. 5 June) that you set all the lost deals activities for - so it is a dedicated chunk of time.

  • Jay Wealcatch
    Jay Wealcatch Member Posts: 53 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited April 2020 #13

    For situations like this, I prefer to mark the deal as lost (and choose a reason like 'bad timing') but schedule an activity to call back in a month or two. You can then reopen the deal later if you successfully reengage. This helps keep your pipeline clear of dead weight without the need for a holding stage.

    This is what I encourage as well but not everyone on my team likes to do this.

  • Jay Wealcatch
    Jay Wealcatch Member Posts: 53 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited April 2022 #14

    I can see how some sort of 'snooze' feature would be good.

    Suggested method: Snooze> select restoration date> log that it was snoozed so that salesman isn't confused when it reappears.

    Would make for a cleaner pipeline. You would want to have a button in the pipeline view for "show snoozed deals" so that they can be glanced at. 

  • Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko
    Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko Member Posts: 5 VERIFIED MEMBER
    edited May 2020 #15

    We use such stage since the beginning of our implementation.

    But the problem with this, we loose the original stage where the lead was... 

    So I also would love to see a deal Status „on hold„ and best in combination with a timeframe too choose how long the deal should be on hold till it active automatic again.

    Same, I don't want to lose the current stage. 

  • Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko
    Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko Member Posts: 5 VERIFIED MEMBER
    edited May 2020 #16
    Ric Vezza said:

    We put into an ‘on hold‘ pipeline. All the details for the deal history  remain in the changelog. 

    We also have clients that make their ‘on hold‘ pipeline  a mirror of the main one and move in to the relative stage there

    We have 5 regional pipelines which means each region would have to have its own "oh hold" pipeline, making the total to be 10. 

  • Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko
    Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko Member Posts: 5 VERIFIED MEMBER
    edited April 2022 #17

    For now, we are just adding a label "On hold" but it would great if we could see the date stamp when a label was added or removed in "Change Log" or as a field "Label Update Time"

  • Michael Roedeske
    Michael Roedeske Member Posts: 26 VERIFIED MEMBER
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    edited May 2020 #18

    We use such stage since the beginning of our implementation.

    But the problem with this, we loose the original stage where the lead was... 

    So I also would love to see a deal Status „on hold„ and best in combination with a timeframe too choose how long the deal should be on hold till it active automatic again.

    Dear @Mike van der Valk ,

    rotten is not helping us. Our pipeline reflects steps in a software sales process like trial started, typical rotten time here 14 days as a trial runs 30 days. But now it can happen actual quite often, they don’t get budget, we should talk in 4 months. with pause for 4 months it would be an excellent solution. Actual we have a stage, pause 3, 6 or 12 months... but with this the pipeline gets long and we don’t see the deal stage, because we also more deals to that stage from other stages. so I am still a recommender for pause for specific time feature.

  • Mike van der Valk
    Mike van der Valk Pipedrive Team Posts: 3,063 PIPEDRIVE TEAM
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    edited May 2020 #19

    We use such stage since the beginning of our implementation.

    But the problem with this, we loose the original stage where the lead was... 

    So I also would love to see a deal Status „on hold„ and best in combination with a timeframe too choose how long the deal should be on hold till it active automatic again.

    @Michael Roedeske and @Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko thanks for sharing. I've passed it along to the team for future consideration. Potentially something you can do is set up an activity reminder for a specific time in the future. So it stays in the pipeline and you don't lose track of it.

  • Mike van der Valk
    Mike van der Valk Pipedrive Team Posts: 3,063 PIPEDRIVE TEAM
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    edited May 2020 #20
    Ric Vezza said:

    We put into an ‘on hold‘ pipeline. All the details for the deal history  remain in the changelog. 

    We also have clients that make their ‘on hold‘ pipeline  a mirror of the main one and move in to the relative stage there

    @Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko may I ask why you have a pipeline per region? We always recommend to keep all in 1 pipeline if the process is the same. You can then use custom fields / tags and filters to easily switch between regions. Makes reporting and reviewing also a lot easier.

  • Tobin Harris
    Tobin Harris Member Posts: 1 VERIFIED MEMBER
    edited April 2022 #21

    We asked ourselves "Where is the buyer in their process since COVID-19?". 

    The short answer is, they've completely de-prioritised the initiative in response to the crisis. 

    You could call it paused, but it's not really. It's gone for now. Potential clients say things like "If we can, we'll probably come back to this in Winter once we've sorted everything else out".  So, to reflect this in our Pipeline view, we need to show that the opportunity has effectively gone away until further notice. Because it has.

    So, we do what Pipedrive suggest - mark the deal lost but make an activity to keep in touch/nurture. 

  • Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko
    Global HQ Anna Kovtunenko Member Posts: 5 VERIFIED MEMBER
    edited May 2020 #22
    Ric Vezza said:

    We put into an ‘on hold‘ pipeline. All the details for the deal history  remain in the changelog. 

    We also have clients that make their ‘on hold‘ pipeline  a mirror of the main one and move in to the relative stage there

    Somewhat of a legacy issue unfortunately... "Train the untrainable" so to speak

  • Colin Berr
    Colin Berr Member Posts: 1 VERIFIED MEMBER
    edited October 2020 #23

    This would be a great feature to have! We need it too.