Leads

What is a lead?

A lead is someone who may present a new business opportunity and who does not belong to an account. A lead is different to a contact.

Leads home screen

Leads home is accessed by selecting the Leads icon.

The Leads home screen lists all the leads you have permissions to view. You can view, edit and delete individual leads from here. By default, the leads are listed alphabetically, with the following columns: Name, company, job title, phone, email and owner.

Filter your view of leads

You can filter by inactive or active leads or by owner or via a text search on the lead name or number. More than one filter can be applied at the same time. Filters remain active until you turn them off. For example, if you apply a filter and navigate away from page and then return, the filter will remain. To clear any filter you have applied, choose 'All' from the dropdown list.

Filter by owner

You can select to view:

all leads you have permissions to view
leads allocated to Teams you belong to (in this example, 'UK' and 'USA', as shown below)
leads that belong to other users (in this example, 'Andy Bass' and other individual user names)

Show inactive leads

By default, only active leads are displayed. To view your inactive leads, select the Active filter button, and choose 'Inactive'.

Search for leads

You can search for a lead by name. This performs an 'is like' search on the name and company columns. More about Searching in CRM.

Add a new lead

Select 'New' from the Leads home screen.
Populate the screen that appears (shown below) with as much detail as required, noting that fields marked with an asterisk * are mandatory.
Save. After saving, a new tab will appear, allowing you to add activities to the new lead, if required. Close.

Expand for More Detail: Standard Lead Fields

Lead fields
Field	Field type	Description
Prefix	Drop Down list	The salutation of the lead. Choose from Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Prof.
First Name	Free Text.	The first name of the lead. This field is mandatory.
Middle Name	Free text.	Middle name (or initial) of the lead.
Last Name	Free text.	Surname of the lead. This field is mandatory.
Company	Free text.	For leads, this field can be used to indicate which company the lead represents. Typically when a lead is converted, this would be the account field.
Job Title	Drop down list.	Typically this field will indicate the lead's area of responsibility, rather than their exact job title. E.g A job title of ‘Northern Region Sales Executive’ could be simply recorded as ‘sales’ Note: this is a customizable field that can be edited by administrators using Add or change a drop-down option in CRM via picklists
Owner	Drop down list	May be used to identify the person who normally looks after this lead. Owners are CRM users.
Is Active	Y/N	Active leads typically include people that are potentially doing business with you. Inactive leads might no longer present an opportunity for future business. Rather than delete the entire lead and all the associated activities, it is often better to mark these leads as inactive.
Communication fields
Phone	Free text	Direct (landline) phone number of the lead.
Fax	Free text	Direct fax number of the lead.
Email	Free text	Email address of the lead.
Website	Free text	Typically the website of the lead's company
Cell	Free text	Cell phone (mobile phone) number of the lead.
Contact Method	Drop down list	Typically used to record the way that particular person prefers to be contacted – e.g. via phone or email. Note: this is a customizable field that can be edited by administrators using Add or change a drop-down option in CRM via picklists
Address fields
Street/city	Free text	Street address and city of the lead.
State	Free text	State in which the lead is based, if applicable.
Postcode	Free text	Zip or Postcode of the lead.
Country	Free text	Country the lead is located in.
Is Mail Address	Y/N	Choose ‘Yes’ if the mail address is the same as the street address. Choose ‘No’ if the mail address is different, and enter in the details in the section below.
Mail address fields
Street/city	Free text	Postal street address (or PO box) and city of the lead.
State	Free text	Postal state of the lead, if applicable.
Postcode	Free text	Postal Zip or Postcode of the lead.
Country	Free text	Postal country the lead is located in.
Custom fields
	Custom	Any field not listed in this table is a custom field. Administrators can create custom fields, typically from data that already exists in your ERP or other systems.

Example

In this example, we have just been made aware of a person/company that may be interested in purchasing from us. We have a business card for a company director named 'Albert Einstein' and we need to enter these details into CRM as a lead.

Step 1. Go to Leads home by selecting the Leads icon.

Step 2. Select 'New'.

Step 3. Populate the fields as required. Note that:

First name and last name are mandatory
The owner field will default to yourself (but this can be changed)
The 'Is active' field will default to 'Yes' (but this can be changed)
Not all fields need to be populated – only fill in what is necessary and relevant to you.

In this example, we will fill in details as per the image below:

Step 4. Save. A message will appear briefly at the top of the screen to indicate if the lead has been successfully added. After saving, a new tab will appear, allowing you to add activities to the new lead, if required. In this example, we will skip this for now.

Step 5. Close to go back to the Leads home screen. The new lead will appear in the list, as shown below.

View or modify an existing lead

To view a lead in more detail or to edit a lead, click on the lead name to open a lead record. You can do this from Leads home or anywhere else in CRM where the lead name appears in blue as an active link. You can view and edit lead information via two tabs ('Lead' and 'Activities').

Lead tab

Here you can edit basic information about the lead, such as name, owner and address details. The lead owner is the Phocas CRM user responsible for communicating with that lead. Once complete, save and close.

Activities tab

Here you have the ability to edit activities relating to the lead. The process for editing lead activities is similar to viewing or modifying activities. Once complete, save and close.

Convert a lead into a contact

Typically, once the lead becomes a customer, you can use Convert in Phocas CRM to convert leads into contacts.

Select the lead from Leads home so that the whole line turns blue.
Select Convert, choose the appropriate account from the list and Save.
The lead will then disappear from leads and appear instead as a contact. Any activities assigned to the lead are retained.

Note. You may need to create a new account prior to converting a lead. This is because contacts, unlike leads, cannot exist in isolation in CRM and must be assigned to an account.

Example

Example: After a recent new business meeting, 'Rafael' from ACME Racquets has decided to purchase our products, and we have just received a purchase order. He exists in CRM as a lead and want to convert him to a contact (attached to an account).

Step 1. From Leads home, locate Rafael, and select so that the whole line turns blue (avoid clicking on any links)

Step 2. Select Convert.

Step 3. From the Account drop down, choose 'ACME Racquets'. Note: In this example, the ACME Raqcuets Account was automatically pushed into CRM overnight after it was entered in our back end (ERP) system. This will vary by company - check with your administrator.

Rafael is now removed from leads, and will appear as a contact against ACME Racquets. Any activities will also be transferred across.

Delete a lead

To delete, select anywhere on the row (avoiding any links) so that the whole line turns blue. Then choose Delete.

If you do not have delete permissions, the delete button may not appear or you may see a message at the top of the screen indicating you do not have permission to delete. You can talk to your administrator about your permissions.

Deleting in older versions of Phocas

In older versions of Phocas, deleting a lead also deletes activities associated with it, so you are deleting the entire history of that lead. An alternative is to mark the lead as 'inactive'.