How a Lead Moves Through the System
Understanding a lead's journey helps you see why each piece of the CRM is configured the way it is. The short version: a lead enters from a known source, lands in a pool, gets assigned to an agent, progresses through your sales pipeline via stages, picks up tags along the way, and — if neglected long enough — can be automatically retired so no opportunity is permanently lost.
Where leads come from: Lead Sources
Every lead has a Lead Source — the channel that brought them in (e.g., "Website Form", "Trade Show", "Referral Partner"). Managers create sources in advance under Leads → Admin Settings → Lead Sources. When a lead is created, the source is stamped on their profile and never changes. This lets you trace which channels produce the leads that eventually deposit.
How leads are organised: Lead Pools
Before a lead can be assigned to an agent, it needs to belong to a Lead Pool. A pool is a named group (e.g., "APAC Inbound", "VIP High-Value") with a defined set of agents who are eligible to receive leads from it. Pools exist so managers can route the right leads to the right team — a Spanish-speaking pool to Spanish-speaking agents, a high-value pool to senior agents, and so on.
Managers create pools in Leads → Admin Settings → Lead Pool and specify which employees belong to each one. A lead doesn't move between pools automatically; reassignment is a deliberate manager action.
Getting to an agent: Assignment
An agent doesn't find their own leads — a manager (or the system, if auto-assignment is configured) pushes a lead to an agent by selecting the lead, choosing the pool, and assigning. From that moment, the lead appears in the agent's Fresh Leads filter.
Assignment is the trigger that kicks off the agent's work. Until a lead is assigned, no agent owns it.
Where the lead is in the pipeline: Lead Stages
Lead Stages are the milestones of your sales process — think of them as a custom funnel you define. Typical examples: New → Contacted → Interested → Documents Requested → Deposited → Closed.
Managers create and order stages in Leads → Admin Settings → Lead Stages. Every stage has a numeric order; this determines how stages appear in the pipeline view. Agents advance a lead from one stage to the next manually using the Set Lead Stage action on the lead's profile. Stages only move when an agent deliberately advances them — they do not update automatically based on activity.
Labelling leads: Lead Tags
Lead Tags let agents (and managers) attach labels to a lead independently of its stage. Tags are flexible — they can record intent ("Interested in Crypto"), outcome history ("Called 3×"), priority ("High Priority"), or any other category that helps the team filter and act.
Two important behaviours to understand:
- Modifiable tags — agents can add or remove them freely at any time.
- Non-modifiable tags — if a tag's Is Modifiable setting is turned off by a manager, an agent's attempt to apply it doesn't take effect immediately. Instead, it creates a Data Change Request that sits in a manager's approval queue. The tag is only applied once the manager approves. This is intentional: non-modifiable tags are typically high-stakes labels (e.g., marking a lead as a duplicate, or flagging a VIP) where a manager needs to sign off.
Tags can also trigger automated workflow actions (e.g., automatically unassigning a lead when a particular tag is applied). Managers configure this via Lead Tag Workflow Config — apply with care.
When a lead goes cold: Retirement
No matter how well leads are managed, some will go quiet. The CRM has a retirement mechanism to handle this automatically: if a lead sits without meaningful activity for a configured period, the system automatically unassigns it from the agent and moves it to the Retired Leads list.
Retirement isn't deletion — the lead record is preserved. It means the lead is available to be reassigned, either to the original agent or to someone else. Managers review the Retired Leads list and can give leads a second chance with a single reassignment action.
The retirement period is configured at the system level (by an admin). Neither agents nor managers change this threshold per lead — it applies uniformly based on system settings.
Who controls what
| What | Set up by | Applied by |
|---|---|---|
| Lead Sources | Manager | Stamped automatically on lead creation |
| Lead Pools | Manager | Manager (during assignment) |
| Lead Stages | Manager | Agent (advances the lead forward) |
| Lead Tags (modifiable) | Manager | Agent (freely) |
| Lead Tags (non-modifiable) | Manager | Agent initiates → Manager approves |
| Retirement threshold | Admin | System (automatic, based on inactivity) |
See also
- Reference: Lead Sources, Lead Pools, Lead Stages, Lead Tags, Retired Leads
- Workflow: Work a Fresh Lead Through to First Deposit, Log a Call, Tag It, and Set a Follow-Up, Request a Lead from a Pool, Keep Leads from Being Auto-Retired, Set Up Your Sales Process, Assign, Reassign, and Unassign Leads, Bulk Import Leads
- Concept: Lead Tag Behaviour