Overview
Leads are early contacts in the sales process. Use the Leads module to create, manage, and track sales leads or unqualified opportunities along with related activities, sales campaigns, and history.
You can associate a lead with any type of campaign to track the effectiveness of the campaign in generating opportunities for your organization.
Creating Leads
You can create Leads in Sugar and you can also import them into Sugar using a comma-delimited, tab-delimited, or custom delimited file. When you import Leads, you can select the default value for the Lead Source, such as Direct Mail, Trade Show, and so on from the drop-down list in the Default Value column.
Select Import from the Leads tab to import Leads. For more information on importing data, see Importing Data.
To create a lead
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Select Create Leads from the Actions bar.
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Or, click the Create link in the far right corner of the List View or Detail View of any Leads page.
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Enter the following information in the Leads Overview section:
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First Name. Enter the lead’s first name.
Last Name. Enter the lead’s last name.
Title. Enter the business title of the lead.
Department. Enter the department to which the lead belongs.
Account Name. Enter the name of the company related to the lead. When you convert the lead, you have the option to create the account as a related record.
Office Phone. Enter the lead’s office phone number.
Mobile. Enter the lead’s mobile phone number.
Fax. Enter the lead’s fax number.
Website. Enter the website of the individual’s organization.
Primary and Other Address: Enter the primary address and Other Addressinformation. To copy the other address from the primary address, select the Copy address from left checkbox.
If you select a lead from the Lead list, the system automatically enters the address. You can edit this information if needed.
Email Address: Enter the email address for the organization and your contacts and campaign targets within the organization. SelectInvalid to indicate an incorrect email address. If you sent out campaign emails this contact and the individual chose to opt-out of receiving them, select Opted Out.
To add an additional email address, click the Add icon. You can add multiple email addresses.
Description: Enter a brief description for the lead.
Enter the following details in the More Information section:
Status. Select the status of the lead from the drop-down list. Standard status options are listed below. The administrator can change these to suit your organization’s requirements:
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New: Unassigned, new lead.
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Assigned: Newly assigned to user.
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In Process: Currently active.
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Converted: The status appears as converted after the Convert Lead link has been selected. The system automatically changes the status in this field.
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Do not delete the Converted status from the drop-down list.
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Recycled: No opportunity at this time, lead should recycle to marketing for future follow-up.
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Dead: No opportunity and/or bad data.
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Status Description. Enter a brief description for the lead status.
Opportunity Amount. Estimated amount of the sale.
Campaign. Enter the campaign name or click Select to select it from the Campaigns list to associate the lead with a campaign.
Lead Source. Select the origins of the lead such as Trade Show or Direct Mail from the drop-down list.
Lead Source Description. Enter a brief description of the lead source.
Referred by. Enter relevant information in this field if someone referred the lead to you.
Do Not Call. Check this box to add the lead’s name to the Do Not Call list. This is to ensure that the lead is not contacted through the phone during campaigns.
Specify the following information in the Other section:
Assigned to. Enter the name of the individual who is assigned to the record, or click Select to choose from the User List. By default, this is assigned to you.
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Click Save.
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This displays the lead’s Detail View. You can create activities, attach notes, and view past marketing activities, including a list of campaigns, if any, that were sent out to the lead in the Lead’s Detail View.
Managing Lead Information
Managing leads includes tasks such as importing and exporting leads, and tracking them through their lifecycle.
To manage leads
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Use the Search sub-panel on the Leads Home page to search for a lead. For more information, see Searching for Information in Sugar.
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Follow the steps listed below to add one or more leads to a campaign Target List:
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Select one or more leads in the Leads List View.
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Click Add To Target List from the Actions drop-down list.
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This opens the Target Lists Search page.
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Select the Target List from the Target Lists Search page.
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For information on how to import and export leads through vCards, see Using vCards to Import and Export Contacts.
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Select the data source from the lead’s Detail View to pull in data from external data sources such as LinkedIn. For more information on data sources, see Integrating data from external sources.
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Select Import from the Actions drop-down list to import records. For more information on importing data, seeImporting Data. For information on how to import Leads from vCards, see Using vCards to Import and Export Contacts.
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Select records from the List View, click the Export link from the Actions drop-down list to to export records. For more information, see Exporting Data.
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Select duplicate records from the List View, click the Merge Duplicates link to merge duplicate records. For more information see To merge duplicate records from the List View.
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Click the View Change Log link in the Detail View of a Lead record to track changes in the lead information over time.
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Select multiple records in the Leads List View, click the Mass Update link in the Actions drop-down list to edit or delete information related to multiple leads. For more information, see To edit or delete multiple records.
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Click on the lead name in the List View to display the Detail View of that lead record. The follow tasks can be performed from the Detail View page:
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Click Edit to modify the record.
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Click Manage Subscriptions to manage newsletter subscriptions.
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Select the newsletter from the Available NewsLetters list and drag it to the NewsLetters Subscribed To list to add the lead to a newsletter subscription mailing list.
Drag the newsletter from the Newsletters Subscribed to list to the Available Newsletters list to add the individual to a newsletter subscription mailing list, Click Saveto update the information.
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Click Duplicate to duplicate a lead, on the detail page. This is a convenient way of creating a similar lead. You can change the information in the duplicate record to create the new lead.
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Cick Delete to delete a lead.
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For more information on how to view and edit related information in a sub-panel, see To manage related information in sub-panels.
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Follow the steps listed below to archive a related email:
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Scroll down to the History sub-panel where related emails are listed in the Detail View.
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Click Archive Email.
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This displays the Create Archived Emails form.
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Copy-paste information related to the email into the fields in the Create Archived Emails form and click Save.
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You can create Web-to-Lead forms for use in your web-based campaigns and other sources such as your website. This Lead information is saved in the Sugar database and can be used to generate opportunities for your organization. For more information, see Creating Web-to-Lead Forms.
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Converting Leads
Sugar enables you to convert leads into Contacts, Opportunities, and Accounts after you have evaluated and qualified them. Based on your lead-conversion options, set by your Sugar administrator, you can do any one of the following with lead-related activities (Tasks, Calls, Meetings, Notes, and Emails) during conversion:
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Create and relate copies of all of the Lead’s activities to new records that you have selected. Copies are created for each of the selected records.
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Move all of the Lead’s activities to a new record that you have selected.
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Do nothing - The activities remain related to the converted Lead.
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To convert a lead
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Click Convert Lead on the Lead’s Detail View page.
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This displays the Convert Lead page.
The Create Account checkbox is pre-selected by the system to create a new account for the lead. You can also create other related records such as a note, task, and opportunity if the administrator has enabled you to do so.
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Click the select arrow next to the Select Account fields to choose an account from the Accounts list and associate the lead with an existing account.
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Select the appropriate checkbox to create a note, appointment, or opportunity.
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This displays fields to enter the information. For example, if you select the Create Opportunity checkbox, fields such as Opportunity Name, Opportunity Amount, and Expected Close Date display below.
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Select a module from the Move Activities to or Copy Activities To drop-down list.
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Note that the drop-down list changes based on your selections on the Convert Lead page. For example, if you have selected Create Opportunity, values displayed in the Move Activities to or Copy Activities Todrop-down list are: Contact, Account, Opportunity.
The Move Activities to or Copy Activities To field is missing if your Sugar administrator has selected Do Nothing for Lead-related activities.
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Populate the mandatory and other fields and click Save.
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This creates a new contact, associates it with the related records and displays links to the new records. You can also view these records from the contact’s Detail View page.
