In this article we explain how opportunities work: how to create them, move them through the pipeline, link proposals to them and close them.
An opportunity is a sale in progress: a trip a client has asked you for that is not confirmed yet. The sales pipeline is the board where you see them all, sorted by stage.
You will find the board under Travel CRM, in the Opportunities tab.
At the top you will see a summary of your portfolio: how many opportunities you have open and the sum of their amounts. Won and lost ones are not counted, so the figure reflects what you actually have in play.
By default you work with five stages: New, Contacted, Proposal, Won and Lost. You can change their names, colours and order, and create your own, as we explain in Configure your pipeline.
Create an opportunity
Click New opportunity.
The form marks four fields as required — Opportunity name, Stage, Amount and Agent — plus at least one contact. Stage and Agent come pre-filled with the first stage of the pipeline and with you, so in practice you only have to type the name, set the amount and pick the contact.
You can choose a contact that already exists or create a new one without leaving the panel.
We recommend a name that combines trip and client — "Japan with the family — Ruiz" — because that is what you will search for later.
Under Optional details you can add the destination, the dates, the number of travellers and the estimated amount. You do not need to fill everything in from the start: the usual thing is to complete it as the conversation progresses.
In Initial note you can leave the context of that first conversation. It will show up as the first entry in the Activity tab.
Move an opportunity between stages
Drag the card to another column. The change is saved automatically and is recorded in the opportunity's activity.
You can also change the stage from the full record: at the top it has a bar with every stage of the pipeline and the current one marked, so you can see where it stands without going back to the board.
Look up an opportunity
Clicking a card does not open the full record: it opens a side panel that summarises the opportunity without taking you off the board. There you have the contacts with their email, the linked proposals, the main fields — amount, agent, destination, dates, travellers and status — and the activity history. You can also close it from the foot of the panel, as we explain further down.
That covers most day-to-day questions: checking an amount, seeing who owns the opportunity, or opening the last proposal you sent.
To work on it, click View opportunity, at the top right of the panel.
The full record adds what the panel does not carry: the stage bar at the top, your custom fields, the Notes and Emails tabs, and the ability to edit each section. Its sidebar is divided into four:
Details — destination, dates, travellers, amount, agent and how long it has been open. If nobody owns it, you will see Unassigned.
Contact(s) — the people linked to it. An opportunity can have several: both members of a couple, or whoever organises a company trip and whoever approves it.
Linked trip(s) — the proposals you have sent.
My fields — your custom fields, if you have created any.
In the main area you have three tabs:
Activity — the full history: creation, every stage change, agent changes and the team's notes, in chronological order. It is what lets somebody else get up to speed in thirty seconds.
Notes — for writing and editing the team's notes.
Emails — the correspondence with the contact, if you have a mailbox connected.
Link proposals
Proposals are managed from the Linked trip(s) section.
While the opportunity has none, you will see two buttons:
Create new proposal — creates a new trip and links it automatically.
Link proposal — links a trip that already exists.
Once you link the first one, to add another or remove one use the section's edit icon: it opens Edit linked trip(s), where you tick the trips you want linked.
You can link several proposals at once. If you offer the client two or more alternatives, link them all: that way there is a record of exactly what you showed them.
On each proposal you will see how many times the client has opened it. That is a useful signal: if a proposal goes days without being opened, it probably needs a nudge.
Close an opportunity
When the trip is confirmed, mark the opportunity as Won; if it does not go ahead, as Lost.
You can do it in two ways: by dragging the card to the matching column, or from the side panel, with the Mark as won and Mark as lost buttons at the foot.
Do mark the ones you lose, too. If you only close the ones you win, the total "in pipeline" stops reflecting your real portfolio.
Search and filter
The search box at the top searches by opportunity name, destination, contact name and email, and linked trip title.
With Filters you can narrow the board by stage, agent, amount or creation date, and also by your own custom fields.
Now that you have the pipeline under control, you can move on to: