Opportunities and pipeline view: manage interested leads

Draft — written from product facts + domain knowledge; UI labels to be verified before publishing.

An opportunity is a lead who has shown interest and now needs to be worked to a meeting or a deal. The Opportunities page is a light CRM inside OutreachFox: a kanban board of interested leads by stage, with value, owner and next step, so nothing that replied "yes" falls through the cracks between the inbox and your real CRM.

How leads become opportunities

• Automatically, when a reply is categorized Interested or Meeting Booked (or any custom category with positive sentiment and the useful flag). The lead lands in the first stage.
• Manually, from the Unified Inbox: open the conversation and click Add to opportunities.
• Manually, from the campaign Contacts tab: select leads and click Add to opportunities.

A lead is one opportunity across all campaigns; replying to two campaigns does not create two cards.

Steps: work the pipeline

1. In the left nav, click Opportunities.
2. The board shows the default stages: New, Contacted, Meeting booked, Proposal, Won, Lost. Each card shows the lead, company, campaign, owner and days in stage.
3. Drag a card to the next stage, or open it and change Stage.
4. Open a card to see the full conversation thread (same as the inbox), the lead's fields and the activity log.
5. Set Value (expected deal size), Owner and Next step with a date. Overdue next steps show in red on the card.
6. Add Notes for context that is not in the thread — call notes, objections, decision date.
7. To close, drag to Won or Lost. For Lost, pick a reason (No budget, Timing, Chose competitor, No response, Other). Reasons appear in the pipeline report.

Steps: customise stages

1. On the Opportunities page, click Settings (gear icon).
2. Click Add stage, give it a name and drag it into position. Rename or delete stages with the three-dots menu. Deleting a stage moves its cards to the previous stage.
3. Optionally set a Default value so new cards get a placeholder deal size.
4. Click Save.

Steps: filter and switch views

1. Use the filters above the board: Owner, Campaign, Stage, Label, Created date.
2. Click List to switch from kanban to a sortable table with the same columns, or Forecast for value per stage and expected close month.

Tips

• Treat New as an inbox: every card there should be moved to Contacted the same day you reply. Cards older than two days in New mean someone is not replying.
• Push opportunities to your CRM at Meeting booked, not at New. Earlier stages create noise for sales; later stages lose the source data.
• Use Lost reasons honestly. "No response" above 40% means your follow-up after a positive reply is too slow or too weak — see the reminders article.
• Keep values rough (three tiers is enough). The point is to prioritise, not to forecast to the dollar.
• Review the board in a 15-minute weekly meeting: overdue next steps first, then cards over 14 days in any stage.

Troubleshooting

• An interested lead did not appear. The reply was categorized differently. Open it in the inbox, change the category to Interested; the card is created immediately.
• Duplicate cards for one company. Two different people at the company replied. That is expected — merge manually by marking one Lost with reason Other and noting the primary contact.
• Card shows "No owner". Auto-assignment rules do not cover this campaign. Assign an owner on the card, or add a rule under Settings → Inbox → Assignment rules.
• Value totals look wrong in Forecast. Cards without a value are counted as zero. Set a Default value in stage settings.

Related articles

• Custom lead labels and how they relate to AI reply categories
• Positive-reply notifications (email, Slack, push)
• Schedule a reply and set follow-up reminders
• Campaign analytics explained: sent, delivered, opens, replies, bounces, opportunities
• Export reports and analytics to CSV
• Set AI reply categorization to organize campaign responses