Leads & pipelines
Enquiries come in by phone, WhatsApp, IndiaMART, Justdial and Facebook ads, and most of them are lost to silence, not to a competitor. In BizOS a lead is an enquiry that has not bought yet. Leads sit on a pipeline — a board of stages you design — so at any moment you can see how many enquiries are alive, where each one is stuck, who holds it and what it is worth.
The board
Drag a card between columns to move the lead. Cards show the name, company, value, priority, assignee, up to two interests and how long the lead has sat in its stage, so a stalled deal is visible without opening anything. Members who hand out leads can filter the board by person, and each column shows its count and ₹ value. All pipelines shows every lead in one table with a Pipeline column.
Stage kinds
| Kind | Meaning | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Open | Still in play | Counted as an active enquiry |
| Won | Closed successfully | Stamps the win date and who held the lead, fires the won automations, offers conversion to a customer |
| Lost | Closed unsuccessfully | Stamps the loss date with a reason, fires the lost automations |
Name the columns whatever you like — New, Site visit done, Quoted, Negotiating — the kind carries the meaning underneath. Moving a won lead back to an open stage clears the win.
Why would I want more than one pipeline?
Different kinds of sale move differently. A counter enquiry closes in a day; a tender takes weeks; an AMC renewal comes due on a date. Give each its own board so the stages make sense and the numbers are not mixed up.
| Template | Stages |
|---|---|
| Sales | New, Contacted, Quoted, Won, Lost |
| Service & repairs | Enquiry, Site visit, Estimate, Scheduled, Won, Lost |
| Projects & tenders | Enquiry, Site survey, Proposal, Negotiation, Won, Lost |
| Renewals | Due, Reminded, Quoted, Renewed (won), Lapsed (lost) |
| Start empty | New, Won, Lost — add your own steps |
- 1
Open the pipeline tools
On the Leads board, open the tools menu next to the board and choose New pipeline. The same is in Settings, Work setup, Pipelines & stages.
- 2
Pick a template or a copy
Choose one of the five templates, or copy the stages of a pipeline you already have.
- 3
Name it and set its defaults
Give it a name and, if you want, a default assignee and a default source for new leads on this pipeline.
- 4
Adjust the stages
Add, rename or reorder stages with Edit stages. Every pipeline keeps at least one Open, one Won and one Lost stage.
Default pipeline, defaults and memory
- One pipeline is the default. New enquiries land there unless something says otherwise. To change it, set another pipeline as default.
- Per-pipeline defaults (assignee and source) fill in only when a new lead says nothing — from the form, an import, an integration, Ask BizOS or the API. Changing a default reassigns nobody.
- The board remembers your pipeline. A link with a pipeline in it wins, then the pipeline you last chose, then the default.
- The dashboard shows a Leads by pipeline card — open leads, won and lost in the last 30 days and idle leads per pipeline — once you have more than one.
Archive or delete?
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Archive | The pipeline is hidden from every picker (new lead, imports, integrations). Its leads stay readable and movable. You can restore it later. |
| Delete | Refused for the default pipeline, the last lead pipeline, and any pipeline an integration delivers to. A pipeline with leads asks where to move them; they land on the target’s first open stage. |
When in doubt, archive — it keeps everything exactly where it is.
How do I move a lead to another pipeline?
Open the lead and press Move to pipeline, or select several leads in the All pipelines table and choose Move to pipeline… (up to 200 at a time). Only the pipeline and stage change: notes, interests, custom fields, quotes and history travel with the lead, and the timeline records the move. The same phone can be an open lead on two pipelines at once — those are two deals, not a duplicate.
Lead sources
Sources are configurable per business: WhatsApp, walk-in, referral, IndiaMART, Instagram, hoarding — whatever brings you work. Add, rename or retire them from Lead sources in the board’s tools menu. Retiring a source never orphans old leads, and the follow-up conversion report tells you which sources are worth the money.
Working a lead
The lead page is a timeline, not a form. From it you can:
- Log a note or a call, or message the lead on WhatsApp.
- Qualify the lead — marking the moment it became a real opportunity.
- Raise a New quote that stays linked back to the lead (Quotations).
- Schedule a follow-up.
- Mark won and Convert to customer, or Mark lost with a reason.
Every action bumps the lead’s last-activity time, which is what idle detection reads. A lead that came from a Facebook or Instagram ad shows an Ad row naming the ad and campaign.
Interests: what did the lead ask about?
Record what a prospect wants as interests — a catalogue item, or free text for something you do not stock yet — up to 50 per lead. They show as chips on the card and the lead page.
- Interests are never priced lines: no rate, tax, discount or total, and no stock moves.
- New quote from the lead pre-fills the quote with the interests, priced from the customer’s price list at that moment.
- The Lead Interest Conversion report shows which asked-about items turned into sales — counting a bill raised from the lead’s quote, or any bill to the converted customer within 90 days of the win (window adjustable). Free-text interests count as demand only.
- Workflows can read interests, so a message can say “the inverter you asked about”.
Capturing leads automatically
Connect a source in Settings → Connections & AI → Lead sources (Owner and Admin). Each connection sets which pipeline and stage leads land on, the source name, an optional fixed assignee, and how many days to merge the same phone (30 by default).
IndiaMART
Buy-lead enquiries from your IndiaMART seller account arrive through IndiaMART’s push, with the buyer’s name, number and requirement.
Justdial
Enquiries from your Justdial listing arrive with the name, mobile, city and the category searched, saved as an interest. Justdial switches the push on: connect in BizOS, then press Copy message for Justdial and send it to your Justdial account manager.
Facebook & Instagram lead ads
Press Continue with Facebook (Facebook Login for Business), pick your Pages and press Receive leads. Form leads arrive the moment they are submitted, with the ad and campaign they came from. A nightly catch-up re-reads the last 48 hours, so a lead Facebook failed to deliver still arrives.
Website & webhooks
An inbound URL for your contact form, landing pages or Zapier-style tools, with a field map for any JSON payload.
Import from Excel
An existing list goes in through the import wizard, onto a pipeline and stage you choose.
Every inbound hit is logged — received, created, duplicate or failed — and failed ones are retried automatically. A repeat enquiry from the same phone on the same pipeline, inside the merge window, becomes a note on the open lead. A Justdial connection shows Awaiting first lead, Receiving or Silent N days, and BizOS alerts the Owner and Admins if no Justdial lead arrives for 7 days (you can change the number). A lapsed Facebook connection is flagged with a reconnect notice.
Justdial publishes no developer documentation
BizOS receives Justdial leads in the format CRM vendors commonly report. Justdial has not confirmed it to us, so check the first few leads against your Justdial app after it goes live.
Can BizOS tell Facebook which ad leads became customers?
Yes. Under Send lead results to Facebook (in the Facebook panel of Lead sources, once connected) choose your ad account and dataset, then map stages to Facebook events — for example Won. When a lead from a Facebook or Instagram form moves into a mapped stage, BizOS reports it to Facebook through the Conversions API, once per lead per event, so ads can find more people like your real customers. Facebook only accepts events within 7 days, and uses them best for a business getting about 200 or more form leads a month; the panel shows your last 30 days’ count.
The same connection lets you turn a campaign segment into a Facebook audience (Campaigns → Facebook audiences). That needs a one-time confirmation by the Owner or an Admin that you have your customers’ permission to use their details for ads, and leaves out anyone who opted out of marketing or switched on Exclude from Facebook audiences on their customer or lead page.
Lead automations
Lead rules live in Automations. Pick a lead trigger — lead created, stage changed, won, lost or idle for N days — add a condition such as “Pipeline is Projects & tenders”, then chain actions: assign, tag, set priority, move stage, notify, send a WhatsApp template, wait, stop if. The board’s Automations menu item takes you there. Rules made in the older per-pipeline automation screen were moved into Automations with a [Lead] prefix.
An idle rule is the highest-value automation
An idle rule that nudges the assignee after 5 days without activity costs nothing to switch on and catches exactly the enquiries that would otherwise go quiet.
Who can do what?
| Role | Leads |
|---|---|
| Owner, Admin | Everything, including setting up lead sources and integrations |
| Manager | Work and reassign every lead; create, edit, archive and delete pipelines and stages; manage lead sources |
| Office staff | Work every lead and move it within or between pipelines; cannot change pipelines, stages or sources |
| Accountant | No access to the boards; can run the lead reports |
| Field technician | None |
To see each lead owner’s results against a monthly target, see Sales team & targets.
Leads from another system
Any system holding an API key with permission to manage leads can create and update leads directly.
Common questions
- What is the difference between a lead and a customer in BizOS?
- In BizOS a lead is an enquiry that has not bought yet and lives on a pipeline board. A customer is someone you transact with, holding quotes, jobs, invoices and payments. Converting a lead creates a customer and keeps the link between the two.
- Can I have more than one lead pipeline in BizOS?
- Yes. BizOS lets you run several lead pipelines, each with its own stages, built from a template (Sales, Service & repairs, Projects & tenders, Renewals or Start empty) or copied from another pipeline. One is the default where new enquiries land.
- Can I get IndiaMART enquiries into BizOS automatically?
- Yes. Connect IndiaMART under Settings, Connections & AI, Lead sources in BizOS, and enquiries arrive on the pipeline and stage you choose. A repeat enquiry from the same phone within 30 days becomes a note on the existing lead instead of a second card.
- Can I get Justdial enquiries into BizOS automatically?
- Yes. Connect Justdial in BizOS under Lead sources, then send the push message BizOS gives you to your Justdial account manager, because Justdial switches the push on from their side. Each enquiry then arrives with the name, mobile, city and the category searched.
- Does BizOS work with Facebook and Instagram lead ads?
- Yes. In BizOS press Continue with Facebook, pick your Pages, and form leads arrive as soon as they are submitted, showing the ad and campaign. A nightly catch-up re-reads the last 48 hours so a lead Facebook failed to deliver is not lost.
- What happens to leads when I delete a pipeline in BizOS?
- BizOS asks which pipeline to move them to and puts them on its first open stage. The default pipeline, the last lead pipeline and a pipeline an integration delivers to cannot be deleted. Archiving instead hides the pipeline from pickers and keeps every lead where it is.
- How do I stop enquiries going cold in BizOS?
- Create an automation in BizOS on the lead idle trigger, for example notify the assignee when an open lead has had no activity for 5 days. Every note, call and stage move resets the clock.
- Can office staff delete or change my pipelines in BizOS?
- No. In BizOS, Office staff can work every lead and move leads between pipelines, but only the Owner, Admin and Manager can create, edit, archive or delete pipelines and their stages.