SLX 7.5 Sales Processes

[slsl]

Hey Everyone,

So have started to play around with Opportunities and Sales Processes in SLX 7.5 and would like to know about any "gotchas" or other "a-ha" moments that might make it easier going forward with the whole process.  Documentation is a bit light so trying to formulate best practices, I think, is going to be a bit of a bear.  And I'm not looking forward to bear hunting season...

Thanks!

Joe

[dfoster]

Joe,

One 'gotcha' about the Sales Process is regarding releases,

If you change a processes (add a step, ect) and then release it, the change will only be seen on opportunities that the Sales Process is either added new, or re-selected.

If you use a process for a week and then decide to modify it, there is no easy way to 'switch' to the new version. You can alway reselect the process, but completed stages and step data is lost and you start over. So plan carefully before releasing a process.

Dennis

[ryan_smith]

Also our users have found it a little difficult to determine how to "go back" in the process, simply unchecking the boxes doesn't seem to work correctly, you have to actually use the Stage box itself towards the top.

So far we only have sales processes rolled out for about 40 of our users but the response we've received has been that they've been very unsatisfied with the way it works. We're considering building a custom functionality that does the same thing but works more like what we need. 

My biggest recommendation is to test it, test it some more, then test it again. 

[RJLedger]

As Sage would say... FAD...

[briway]

We had success when we queried the Sales team on what they were already doing to have a successful Sale, THEN queried them on what improvements they recognized as being needed for the process to be more successful.  Then we put that into a single SLX Sales Process.  Because they were already doing the steps, and recognized the added steps were to improve their success, they bought in to the automation.   And since there is one generic process, we don't have them picking an ill-fitting process.  Simple, straight-forward, successful.

And, be sure to make the SLX process steps concrete or measurable.  For instance, one of our steps is "Conducted Demo".  You either did the step, or you didn't. No gray areas, so everyone knows exactly where each Opportunity stands.

[JasonHuber]

Hi Joe. I recorded a set of videos for the Developers Subscription that I know many of the people internally use to get PO up and running. There is a quick start guide floating around out there as well. I do no have a copy any longer, but that is what I used initially. Get a hold of training.crm@sage.com and ask about the Developers Subscription. That is the main outlet I have to share that sort of information. There are many steps and some gotchas, but once you have been through it - it becomes easy to create them. As far as how useful they are etc, I cannot speak to that. I can tell you there are many cases where PO is misunderstood and used in a way it may not have been designed for.

Recently a discussion of Business Rules versus PO. The discussion could have also mentioned entity interceptors. When to use each?

It was a good discussion. Let me know if we want to get into it here.

[rwilliams254]

Joe,

I know this seems really obvious, but one thing to look out for is to complete every section of your sales process before moving on.  Meaning, don't skip sections and check them off.  Within the web client you'll receive an notification error.