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While a large percent of the sales reps time is spent creating quotes as customers request them, the client did want to utilize the Opportunity area of SalesLogix for pipeline tracking in order to gain strategic insight into the upcoming product requirements.  The client manufactures their own products as needed so they need to be able to tell what kind of raw materials will be needed in the future.  By utilizing the SalesLogix Opportunity area for sales forecasting the client is able to plan for future demand and ensure enough materials are ordered with enough lead time to match customer buying trends.

Opportunity List Pricing
Because the quoting tool of SalesLogix is designed to produce an accurate quote at the time the quote is produced it requires detailed input in order to return correct pricing.  The client did not want the Opportunity area to be so detail oriented.  Instead, the intent of Opportunities is to get a general idea of the type of products and their quantities that potentially will sell over any given upcoming period.  For this reason the pricing in Opportunities utilizes “list” pricing, in order to calculate the sales potential of a deal.  This is different than quote pricing, as quotes return real time pricing based on several factors, such as quantity discounts, customer specific pricing, promotions, etc.

To further enhance the capability of producing an accurate sales pipeline the Opportunity screen was modified to allow the Sales Potential to be manually set by the sales reps.  If needed, reps can enter a sales amount without adding any products, or they can override the pricing driven by the selected products. By simply checking the “Manually edit Potential” checkbox, the user can then type in the amount they would like the Opportunity to represent.  If they would like to switch back to use the value from the products, the user can simply clear the checkbox, at which point the Sales potential is recalculated based on the products.

The Opportunity area was modified to included increased flexibility in sales forecasting.  Users can override the product driven pricing and enter their own

In addition to these customizations, the Opportunity area was extended to include associating multiple Quotes to the Opportunity.  Also, the Product tab was enhanced with the same functionality found at the Quote Product area, including the BTO Kit functionality.

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