Deals have been updated to provide an easy, streamlined way for salespeople to pitch Projects already created by managers while working through their monthly, quarterly, or yearly buys. This allows salespeople to enter project information at the same time they enter deal information from a single location, without having to go to two different places in the system.
Deal Entry
Every row on a deal will provide you with an optional way to set the Project it is affiliated with. Because this is optional, we expect this to display as “No Selection” more times than it contains an actual project and that’s just fine. You’ll only fill out the field if all the dollars on that row are affiliated with a specific project.
Note: If your company has configured the Admin settings for Unit Codes to be used with Projects, then the Project dropdown will also contain the Unit Code in conjunction with the Project name. For example, to indicate the Project of NFL 2021 with a unit code of Half-Time Show your dropdown selection may look like “NFL 2021 (Half-Time Show)”
How Does the Project Field Work with the Deal?
Projects will only appear in the dropdown if:
- The salesperson on the deal is allowed to sell it based upon the Outlets on the Project. This means a seller in Atlanta will not be able to add a project that is specific to Austin.
- They have at least 1 month overlapping with the deal. This means a project such as NFL 2021 which runs the entire NFL season will not appear for a deal that is for Q2 (April, May, June) because the NFL 2021 project is for August – February.
When Projects are set up by a manager, they are tied to specific Offices, Outlets, and Revenue Types. As a result, selecting a Project may update the Office, Outlet, and Rev Type fields on the deal. For example, the project NFL 2021 is only for WAAA and the Core Revenue Type. If you have selected any other Outlet or Revenue Type, upon selecting NFL 2021 as your project they will be updated to the first valid Outlet (WAAA in this case) and the first valid Revenue Type (Core in this case) so that reporting on projects is as accurate as possible.
- The Outlet and Revenue Type will also adhere to the Outlet and Revenue Type relationships that an Admin may have previously setup to help ensure proper combinations are created on pitched project dollars just as they are on pending deal values.
- Selecting a Project will disable entering dollars for any months that are not set up for the project. For example, if my deal is for Q4 and an affiliated project is only for October, then when that project is added to our example deal, I will only be able to add Project dollars for October.
- All pitches will also exist on the Projects module. You are free to edit your project pitches via deals or within Projects. It is a LOT easier to do this via the Deal with this new workflow, but the 2 locations will match up as both screens share data and will always be in sync.
- This also means that every project pitched dollar has a corresponding deal even if that deal only contains project dollars.
- Reporting remains unchanged, regardless of whether project pitches were entered from a Deal or in Projects.
- Reconciliation also remains unchanged. Dollars will continue to reconcile against Projects as they have in the past.
- It is important to note that some customers elect to freeze their reconciled dollars in the UI for analysis. This still exists on the Projects module but is not part of the experience on Deals as this is focused on the entry workflow. For Project analysis, we encourage you to visit the Projects module.
NOTE: When running Forecast Reports, if you say NO to include pitched projects the amount will not be considered in the report as part of the (Pending) Forecast. If you say YES to include it then the amount will display in the Projects column, not in pending and Forecast equation is then Booked + Pending + Pitched Projects = Forecast.
Controlling the Pitch Per Row
Depending on your Admin configuration, a pitched project on a deal will either be controlled via the Deal Status or via the individual project controls per row. This is set on the /admin/settings page in the Display Projects Pitched Status pod.
- If you see the controls for Pitched, Sold, and Declined next to your Project field when a project is selected, then you may update the status of the Pitch to Sold or Declined separate from the Deal itself.
- If you do not see controls for Pitched, Sold, and Declined next to your project field when a project is selected, then the project is controlled by the Deal Status. The entire deal is either Won or Lost as a whole.
Other Changes
With the changes to introduce Projects to deals, we had to update the Project Pitches slightly within the Projects module.
- The Office and Weight now live on the Pitch itself, not at the row, to align with Deals.
- You cannot close a Deal with existing Pitched Dollars. If you try, you'll get a notice in the upper right, like the graphic below.
