CRM · Daily operations · 9 min read

Assign leads, set territories and arrange cover

Place leads with assignment rules, work the assignment queue, reassign by hand, and arrange cover and territory limits.

Before you begin

• Teams exist with at least one representative or manager (see Set up teams, masters and scoring).
• Reassigning needs a team manager of the deal's team, or an administrator.

Territories

A territory groups countries and cities. A deal's territory is picked from its country and city when you save it. The most specific match wins: a city-specific or child territory beats its parent.

1. Open CRM > Configuration > Territories and press New.
2. Enter Code, Name, optionally Parent, Team and Manager.
3. List the Countries and, if wanted, Cities, separated by commas.
4. Press Save.

A territory cannot sit inside itself: 'A territory cannot sit inside itself.' Dates in the territory limit when it applies.

Example: UAE has country United Arab Emirates. Dubai has parent UAE and city Dubai. A lead in the UAE and Dubai gets Dubai. A lead in the UAE and Ajman gets UAE. A lead in Oman with no matching territory shows "None matched".

Assignment rules

1. Open CRM > Configuration > Assignment rules and press New.
2. Choose the Team, an optional Territory, and lists of Sources and Markets. Blank means any.
3. Choose the Method: round robin or least loaded.
4. Set Capacity (open deals per person, 0 for no limit), SLA hours and Priority (lowest number is tried first).
5. Set Valid from and Valid to if needed and press Save.

Rules apply to imported leads (see Import leads).

Worked example

Rule NORTH is round robin for the team North, whose representatives have ids 5, 6 and 7. The last person placed was 5. Importing three leads places them on 6, 7 and then 5. With least loaded and open deal counts of 3, 1 and 2 for people 5, 6 and 7, the next lead goes to person 6.

The assignment queue

A lead that no rule can place, for example because every member is at capacity, waits in CRM > Leads > Assignment queue.

1. A manager frees capacity or adds a member.
2. Press Run assignment rules.
3. Read the message, for example '1 placed, 0 still waiting.'

Deals of teams you do not manage are skipped.

Reassign by hand

1. Open the deal and go to Ownership.
2. Choose the New owner and, if needed, the Team. Moving to another team needs manager rights on both teams.
3. Enter the Reason.
4. Press Reassign.

An assignment-history row and an "assigned" event are written. Sending it twice makes one row. Choosing the same owner and team gives 'The record already belongs there.' A representative sees "A manager of the team reassigns records."

Cover for an absent owner

1. Open CRM > Configuration > Coverage delegations and press New.
2. Choose Owner away, Covered by and the Team.
3. Enter Start, End and Reason, then Save.

The covering colleague can act on the absent owner's deals of that team from the start to the end date inclusive. Cover ends by itself. It does not give access outside that team or those dates. The two people must be different and both representatives or managers of the team.

Limit a person to territories

Under CRM > Configuration > Territory access, add a row naming a Person and a Territory. That person, such as a reseller, then sees only deals in that territory and its children, in every screen, including direct references ('Record not found.' for others). Creating a deal outside gives 'This record falls outside the territories you work.' People with no rows, and administrators, are not limited. The change applies on the person's next request.

Good to know

• Moving a team member or switching a team off changes access immediately.
• Hand-made leads and campaign hand-offs are not placed by rules. They stay with their creator.