Opportunity Pipelines should depict your Sales Opportunity process using statuses as the different stages of the process. Please note: You can have multiple Opportunity Pipelines if you have more than one Sales Opportunity process.
An Opportunity Pipeline will include a series of statuses sequenced in a particular order that the sales opportunity should experience. For example, your first status may be 'Qualified' and the next would be 'Meeting Booked', then finally having either 'Sold' or 'Lost' as your closing status within the Pipeline.
Step 1: Choose an Opportunity Pipeline
When creating your new Opportunity, you can choose the appropriate Opportunity Pipeline from the 'Pipeline' drop-down. This will then automatically set the new Opportunity to the first status within the Pipeline, which in this example is 'Unqualified'. To help you identify the sequence of the statuses within the Pipeline, they're numbered.
Step 2: Click Create!
If you click create once you're happy with the information entered for your new Opportunity, you will be able to see exactly which stage this Opportunity is in within the Pipeline. Along the top of the Opportunity, you can see all the statuses included within the Opportunity Pipeline. Please note: Some of these statuses may require a task.
Step 3: Change Opportunity Status
To move the Opportunity through the Pipeline, you just need to change the Opportunity status from the 'Current Status' drop-down. Please note: You can go back to a previous status if required.
If you have administrator rights and would like to configure your Opportunity Pipelines, please see our article here.