Pipelines and statuses
What this page is — the pipelines a lead can travel, and the statuses that make up each one.
What it is for — defining what progress means for your business. Statuses become the columns of the lead board and the steps of the funnel report.
The problem it solves — this is the structure everything else hangs from: a lead with no status appears on no board, and a funnel is only meaningful if the statuses are categorised properly. It is also where the single most confusing Pulse behaviour originates — a pipeline belonging to one project being referenced by another project's leads.
Route: /org/marketing/leads/settings?tab=pipelines · Permission: Manage Lead Pipelines
Manage Lead Pipelines governs pipelines, their statuses, and the action that seeds a default pipeline. Statuses also have their own four permissions — View Statuses, Create Lead Status, Edit Lead Status and Delete Lead Status — which let you grant them separately if you prefer.
1. What they are
| Pipeline | Status | Status category | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example | Enterprise Pipeline | Contract Negotiation | qualified |
| Belongs to | A project, or the whole org | One pipeline | Fixed set of five |
| Drives | Which board you can view | A board column | The funnel report |
| Configurable | Yes | Yes | No — pick from five |
2. Field reference — pipeline
| Field | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | text, required | The only required field |
| Description | text | |
| Default | toggle | Marks the pipeline as the org default |
| Active | toggle | |
| Project scope | — | Set on creation. A pipeline belongs either to one project or to the whole organisation |
3. Field reference — status
| Field | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | text, required | The board column heading |
| Code | text, required | Stable identifier |
| Category | select, one of five | new · working · qualified · converted · lost |
| Colour | colour | The chip colour on cards and rows |
| Order | number | Left-to-right board position |
| Final | toggle | Marks a terminal status |
| Required fields | list | Fields that should be present to enter this status |
Initial Contact and Discovery Call can both be new, and the funnel counts them together. Getting
categories right matters more than naming statuses well — a pipeline whose statuses are all working
produces a funnel with one bar.
Final does not lock the recordA lead in a final status can still be edited, moved and converted. The flag marks the end of the sequence; it does not enforce it.
4. Project scope — the trap
A pipeline is visible to a project when it belongs to that project, or to the whole organisation. The picker honours that correctly.
Nothing enforces it when a lead is saved by other means. A lead can end up attached to a pipeline its project cannot see, and then:
- the list shows a pipeline name that is not in the picker
- the board cannot place the lead at all
- opening the lead and saving moves it to a different pipeline, silently
This can affect the majority of a project's leads, when a pipeline that was later scoped to a different project is still referenced by them. If your board is far emptier than your list, check this before anything else.
Nothing requires a status. A pipeline created and left empty appears in every picker, and selecting it renders a board with no columns and no explanation.
5. Step by step
Seeding defaults
If Pipelines is empty, the setup action creates a default pipeline with a full status set whose categories are already correct. Gated on Manage Lead Pipelines. Do this before configuring by hand.
Reordering statuses
Drag to reorder, which rewrites sort_order. The board follows immediately.
Deleting a status
Deleting a status that leads occupy leaves those leads without one, and therefore off the board. Move them first.
6. The admin contract
| Needs | Or |
|---|---|
| A pipeline visible to the project | No board, and leads cannot be given a status |
| Statuses on that pipeline | The board has no columns |
| Correct status categories | The funnel report is meaningless |
| Manage Lead Pipelines | Read-only |
7. Downstream
| Changing this | Affects |
|---|---|
| Adding a status | A new board column; the funnel gains a step |
| Changing a category | Every funnel figure, retroactively |
| Reordering | Board column order |
| Deleting a pipeline | Cascades to its statuses — leads referencing them lose their status |
8. Don't confuse this with…
| This | Not this |
|---|---|
| A lead pipeline | A deal pipeline — different table |
| A status | A lifecycle stage |
| A status's category | A source category |
| Manage Lead Pipelines — pipelines and statuses together | The four separate status permissions, if you want to split them |
9. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| Board has no columns | The pipeline has no statuses. Section 4 |
| A lead shows a pipeline not in the picker | Cross-project reference. Section 4 |
| Saving a lead changed its pipeline | Same cause |
| Funnel report has one bar | Every status shares a category. Section 3 |
| Reordering had no effect | Statuses sharing a sort_order order unpredictably |
Granting statuses.edit did nothing | Dead permission. Grant manage_pipelines |