Workflow Blueprints: gating deal stages

What a blueprint is

A blueprint is a gate on one stage of your deal pipeline. It is checked when someone tries to move a deal INTO that stage, whether by dragging the card on the Deals board or by editing the deal. If the deal does not meet the gate, the move is refused and the deal stays where it was. Admins can always satisfy the role part of a gate.

Governs deals only today

Blueprints apply to deals. They do not apply to estimates, proposals, engagements, tickets or leads: the stage of an estimate or proposal is simply its document status, and engagements have their own stages. If you sell with quotes and have no deals, you do not need blueprints.

What a gate can require

• Required fields: the deal must have a value in Amount, Close date, Contact, Company or Probability before it can enter the stage.
• Allowed from stages: only deals currently in the stages you tick may enter this stage. Leave it empty to allow any earlier stage.
• Role: Anyone, Manager or admin, or Admin only. Admins always pass.
• Approval: when switched on, the move is blocked until an approver (Manager or admin, or Admin only) approves it.
• SLA (hours): how long a deal may sit in the stage. The clock starts when the deal enters the stage.

Set one up, step by step

• You need to be an admin. Open Blueprints from the Sales Config group of the sidebar. If you do not see it, you have no deals yet: go to Settings, find Deals pipeline and switch on "Use deals pipeline", or open /blueprints directly.
• Find the stage you want to gate (the gate is set on the stage the deal moves INTO) and click Edit.
• Tick the required fields, the allowed "from" stages, choose a role, and optionally switch on approval and set an SLA in hours.
• Click Save. The row now summarises the gate, for example "Requires: Amount, Close date, Role: Manager or admin".
• To remove a gate, use Remove on that stage. Deals can then move into it freely again.

What people see

• A refused move shows why: "Cannot move to this stage. Required fields missing: Amount, Close date", "This transition isn't allowed by the blueprint", or "This transition requires the manager role".
• With approval switched on, the person is told the move needs approval and a request is created. The approver sees it under Pending approvals at the top of the Blueprints page and chooses Approve or Reject. Once approved, the move can be made once; the approval is used up by that move.
• With an SLA, if the deal is still in the stage when the time is up, the deal owner gets one "Deal stage SLA breached" notification. Moving the deal to another stage restarts the clock.

Limitations

• Required activities and conditions are stored on a blueprint but are not enforced yet. Only required fields, allowed-from stages, role, approval and SLA are checked.
• Only the five fields listed above can be required.
• A gate is not applied retroactively: deals already sitting in a stage stay there.
• Only admins can create, change or remove blueprints.