Before you begin

Owner or Admin authority to change shared pipeline configuration
An approved sales process with distinct stage entry and exit criteria
A migration decision for deals already using affected stages
Representative deals for testing board and reporting behavior

Model the decision journey, not internal activity

Good stages describe meaningful changes in customer evidence: Qualified, Scope shared, Decision, Won. Avoid stages such as “Called twice” that belong in tasks or activity history. Keep enough stages to guide work without making progress ambiguous.

WRKZY includes starting templates for conversation-led sales, services and projects, high-velocity inbound, and renewals and expansion. Use the closest operating model, then tune it with the team that will run it.

WRKZY deal pipeline board with stages and owned opportunities — **A useful Board lets a teammate explain the customer evidence represented by every column. Configure stage rules to protect that meaning, not simply to reproduce an internal activity checklist.**

Create and configure a pipeline

Open Deals → Pipeline settings. This area is limited to workspace owners and admins.
Choose Add pipeline, enter a distinct name, and select the closest template.
For each stage, set its name, color, and type: Open, Won, or Lost.
Set a default probability for evidence normally present at that stage. Set stale-after days for open stages where silence or aging matters.
Decide whether deals may be created directly in the stage.
Enable skip or backward-movement prevention where process integrity requires it.
Add an approval value threshold when high-value stage movement needs oversight.
Mark supported deal fields optional, recommended, or required for the stage.
Save and test with a non-customer record before training the team.

Stage control choices
Control	Use it when
Creation allowed	A legitimate deal can begin at this stage
Default probability	The stage has a repeatable evidence baseline
Stale after	Time in stage should trigger review
Prevent skip	Intermediate evidence must not be bypassed
Prevent backward	Regression needs a governed alternative rather than casual movement
Approval threshold	Value above a threshold requires another reviewer
Required fields	A field is necessary before the deal can enter

Required integrity

Every active pipeline needs at least one Open, one Won, and one Lost stage. Terminal stages should generally block direct creation. Reordering or changing rules affects how current deals are evaluated, so review open-deal counts and communicate changes before saving.

Test the workflow

Create a test deal in an allowed stage. Try a permitted move, a blocked skip, a move that lacks a required field, and a high-value move that should request approval. Close as Won and Lost to verify actual close date and outcome reason behavior. Confirm every transition appears in durable history.

Archive safely

Archive a pipeline only after active deals have a destination or an explicit retention plan. A pipeline or stage required by an archived deal may need to be restored before that deal can be recovered.

Pipeline launch review

Stages describe customer evidence
Open, Won, and Lost types exist
Probability and aging have clear rationale
Movement and approval rules tested
Current deals assessed before structural change
Team knows the definition of each stage