An offer’s status shows which stage of processing it has reached. You can resume interrupted processing, archive an offer or duplicate it as the basis for a new offer. Cancelling, archiving and deleting affect the data in different ways.
These instructions apply to the browser. This feature requires the organisation’s Field service management feature and permission to view offers. Changing the status requires edit permission, deleting requires delete permission, and duplicating requires permission to create a new offer. The Android and iOS apps do not have an equivalent offer management view.
Tracking and changing the status
Open Customers → Offers from the browser menu. Select Kanban or Datatables. In Kanban, offers appear in status columns. In the table, the status appears on the offer’s row, and you can open the offer by clicking its title or offer number.
In Kanban, change the status by dragging the offer card to an allowed status column. On the form, open the Offer Information section on the Offer Details tab, select Status and click the Save button at the bottom of the form. When you mark an offer as won or lost, fill in Reason for winning or Reason for losing in the window that opens and confirm the change. The reason is required.
Not all status changes are allowed. The table shows the allowed transitions between processing statuses:
| Current status | Allowed next statuses |
|---|---|
| Opportunity | In Progress, Offer Sent, Cancelled |
| In Progress | Opportunity, Offer Sent, Won, Lost, Cancelled |
| Offer Sent | Opportunity, In Progress, Won, Lost, Cancelled |
| Won | Cancelled |
| Lost or Cancelled | Offer Sent, In Progress |
For example, you cannot move directly from Opportunity to Won. You can resume processing a cancelled offer by returning it to In Progress or Offer Sent. After changing the status, check the saved status in the offer view or by reopening the offer.
Archiving and finding hidden offers
From any processing status in the table, you can also select Archived in the form’s Status field. Archiving preserves the offer’s data and existing task links, but an archived offer cannot be returned to a processing status. Use cancellation if you may need to resume processing later.
The table hides cancelled and archived offers by default. To display them, use the Show cancelled & archived option above the table on the Datatables tab. Kanban has a Cancelled column but no column for archived offers. This option does not display deleted offers.
Winning an offer and linked tasks
The Create task when offer is won option in the Task Settings section on the offer’s Offer Details tab determines whether a task is created when the offer is won. The organisation’s Always create tasks for won offers setting overrides the offer-specific choice and requires a title and priority in the task settings.
Check and save the task settings before marking the offer as won. If task creation fails, the change to Won is not saved either. Check the information indicated by the error message and try again. Other changes saved earlier are not undone by a failed status change.
If the task settings are missing a spot, responsibilities or a due date, the task is created in planning. Otherwise, the task’s status is set to open or late according to its due date. The options are described in more detail in Configuring the task created from a won offer.
An offer can have several linked tasks: in addition to the automatic task, tasks can be linked manually. Linked tasks in the form’s Offer Information section shows the tasks you have permission to view. Open a task using its link and check the details and status of the work created. The absence of a list does not prove that no tasks are linked to the offer.
A manually linked task does not replace the automatic task created when the offer is won. If the automatic task already exists, no new task is created even if the offer is returned to processing and marked as won again.
Editing restrictions for won offers
In the Won status, the browser form locks the other basic information, customer selections, task settings and offer row editing. Adding pricing rows and editing attachment description sections are also locked.
The title, description and status remain editable. However, in the current form, the save buttons are disabled until you select another allowed status. You therefore cannot save a correction to just the title or description from this form while keeping the Won status. You can change the status to Cancelled or Archived; their consequences are described in these instructions. To create a new offer, you can duplicate the won offer.
Cancelling preserves tasks and links
Changing an offer to Cancelled preserves all linked tasks and their offer links. This also applies to the automatic task created from a won offer and to completed tasks. Cancelling does not change the tasks’ statuses or delete their content or entries. If work needs to be stopped or its information changed, handle the task separately.
You cannot create new task links to a cancelled, lost or archived offer. Existing links remain. An automatic offer link or an offer link on a completed task cannot be changed from the task.
Deleting removes links but preserves tasks
Deleting is a separate action from cancelling or archiving. Open Datatables and click the trash icon on the offer’s row. Confirm the deletion. If the offer has linked tasks, you will then be asked to confirm the removal of all task links separately. The displayed count also includes automatic links and links on completed tasks, even if you cannot see all the tasks.
When you confirm the removal of the links, all offer links on the tasks are removed. The tasks remain in the same statuses, and their content and entries are not deleted. Automatic links and links on completed tasks that are otherwise locked are also removed. If you do not accept the confirmation, the offer and its links remain.
The confirmation applies to the current links and is valid for 15 minutes. If the links change or the confirmation expires, the system asks for a new confirmation.
The data of an offer linked to tasks is retained as deleted, but the offer disappears from the offer views and can no longer be opened normally. If the offer has no task links, deleting it removes the offer, its offer rows and file attachments. In this situation, deletion is blocked if the offer is linked to a customer or contact person. You can archive the offer instead of deleting it.
After a successful deletion, check that the offer has disappeared from the view. If it had linked tasks, check the tasks as needed to confirm that the work remains and the offer link has been removed.
Duplicating an offer
Duplicating creates a new offer based on the last saved version of the offer. It does not use unsaved changes in the open form. Successful duplication closes the original form without a warning about discarding unsaved changes.
- First, save any changes to the original offer that you want to include in the copy. Check that saving succeeded.
- Open the saved offer using its title or offer number link in the table.
- Select Duplicate at the bottom of the form.
- The system immediately saves the new offer with the Opportunity status and opens it for editing. Make the necessary changes and save them.
Duplicating requires automatic offer number generation. In the browser, the setting is under Settings → Offer settings → Offer Numbering, in the Offer Number section’s Auto-generate numbers option. If necessary, ask the user responsible for managing settings to check it. Without automatic offer numbering, duplication fails because the offer number, which is cleared for the copy, is required.
A new offer number is generated for the copy. For a Project offer, the project number is regenerated only if automatic project number generation is enabled; otherwise, the project number is left empty.
The customer and contact person, title and descriptions, other offer fields, offer rows with their saved prices, and offer-specific task and PDF settings are copied. The date is set to the duplication date. The validity, latest offer date, and reasons for winning and losing are cleared. The original offer’s generated PDF and file attachments are not copied.
The copy does not inherit the original offer’s task links, and no task is created during duplication. However, the task settings and task creation option are copied, so check whether winning the new offer should create work later.
To finish checking the copy, reopen it and verify the new offer number, Opportunity status, customer, offer rows and prices, date, validity and task settings. The prices used for duplication are the saved offer’s prices; check that they are suitable for the new offer. Pricing is covered in Creating and pricing an offer.
Simply closing the copy’s editing window does not undo duplication: the new offer has already been saved. The same rules apply to deleting or archiving an unnecessary copy as to other offers.