Lead management

Leads are top-of-funnel records. People or companies that have shown some interest but are not yet qualified accounts. BottleCRM tracks leads through capture, qualification, and conversion.

Capturing leads

Four intake paths are supported out of the box:

Manual entry in the web app at /leads/new, or from the phone app.
CSV import from the Import button on the leads list, in the web app or the phone app: preview the file, see every row error, then commit. Up to 5,000 rows and 5 MB, and all or nothing. See CSV import and export.
A web form embedded on your own site, built in Settings and pasted in as one line of HTML. The visitor needs no account and the snippet carries no credential. See Web forms.
API ingestion: POST /api/leads/ from a marketing tool or a script.

The list view filters by status, source, assignee and tag. The API also takes a custom-field filter, cf_<key>=<value>; see Custom fields. A filtered list can be kept as a saved view and opened again with one tap, on the web or the phone.

Lead lifecycle

A lead's status is one of assigned, in process, recycled, closed and converted.

closed takes a lead out of the working list, and a closed or recycled lead can be reopened. converted is one-way, and the API enforces it whatever the screen shows: a converted lead cannot be moved to another status, and converting it a second time is refused, because that would build a second deal against the same account. Converting needs an email address on the lead.

Converting creates an Account named after the lead's company, or after the person when there is no company. If an account with that name exists it is reused, and the conversion is refused when that account is one you cannot open. It also creates a Contact from the lead's details (or links the existing contact with that email, if you can open it), and an Opportunity in the default pipeline when the lead has a deal value, a first name or a company. All of it happens in one transaction with the lead locked, so a failure part-way creates nothing and leaves the lead unconverted, and two people converting the same lead at once get one deal between them. Converted leads leave the lead list.

Duplicates

While you fill in a new lead, on the web or the phone, a Possible duplicates notice lists the open leads you can already see with the same email address, the same phone number (compared on its digits, whatever the spacing), or the same first and last name. A company name counts on its own only when the lead has no person's name, because two people at one company are two leads. You can still save.

A lead's page shows the same list when there are matches. Compare and merge puts the two side by side: pick the one to keep and confirm. The kept lead's values, status and board position stay, its blank fields take the other's, its tasks, linked contacts, web form submissions, notes and files move across, and then the other lead is deleted. Converted leads are never offered and cannot be merged. There is no undo, and every merge is written to the audit log. Keeping one lead deletes the other, so you need to be allowed to delete it: an admin, or whoever created it.

Board

/leads/board in the web app, and the board view of Leads in the phone app, show a lead pipeline as columns. Drag a card on the web, or use the card's Move to menu on either client. Leads that are not in the pipeline sit in a No stage lane, and moving a lead back to No stage takes it out of the pipeline again. Conversion still happens from the lead's own page, not from the board.

Admins manage lead pipelines and their stages under Settings → Lead pipelines, on the web and the phone. Every member can read them; only an admin can change them. A lead stage has a colour, a type (open, won or lost), a default win probability, an optional work-in-progress limit, and can map to a lead status. The vertical packs create their own named lead pipelines this way, and those now show up on the board like any other.

Bulk operations

There is no bulk assign, bulk tag or bulk delete for leads, and the list view offers no multi-select. Bulk status and assignee changes are a tickets feature (bulk/update/ and bulk/delete/ under /api/cases/).

Export

The Export button on the leads list, on the web or the phone, downloads the list as a CSV with your current filters applied, and only the leads you are allowed to see. See CSV import and export.