Deal flows
A deal flow is one of your pipelines. It decides the stages a deal moves through, the columns on the Deals board, the sections of the Buyer Space, the sales methodology your Shadow follows, and which buyer roles take part at each step. You can run several flows side by side, for example one for enterprise and one for SMB.
Where: Settings → Deal flow.
Who can use it: everyone can view the flow library. Only an Admin can create, edit, duplicate or archive flows.
The flow library
Section titled “The flow library”Each flow shows whether it’s ACTIVE or ARCHIVED. Click a flow to edit it, or use its menu to Edit, Duplicate, Make catch-all or Archive. Archived flows can be restored.
- Archiving a flow stops new accounts from being assigned to it. Deals already on it stay there, and their Buyer Spaces keep working.
- System flows can’t be deleted.
Create a flow
Section titled “Create a flow”Click New deal flow. A wizard walks you through six steps.
1. Template
Section titled “1. Template”Start from a ready-made template, for example ENT Flow (enterprise buying committee), Mid-Size Flow or SMB or Startup Flow, or choose Custom flow from scratch. Templates are copied when you use them, so later changes Shadows makes to a template never reach your flow.
2. Name & audience
Section titled “2. Name & audience”Give the flow a Flow name, then choose how accounts reach it under Match accounts on. A flow matches on one attribute only:
- Employee count, Annual revenue, Deal value (TCV), Funding raised, Customer count or Segment — then tick the bands this flow should claim.
- Custom tag — the flow claims any account carrying this exact CRM tag.
- No automatic matching — nothing is matched automatically; an Admin assigns this flow by hand.
The catch-all flow has no audience rules: it takes every account that no other flow claims. A live count shows how many open deals the flow would affect, and warns you when rules overlap with another flow.
3. Stages
Section titled “3. Stages”Shape the stages (up to 6) and the sub-stages inside each one (up to 5 per stage). Stages are the columns on the Deals board and the sections of the Buyer Space. Rename anything, pick sub-stages from the ready-made set, or name your own. Every stage needs at least one sub-stage.
4. Methodology
Section titled “4. Methodology”Choose the sales methodology your Shadow runs this flow on, such as MEDDPICC, BANT, Sandler or ValueSelling, or No methodology. Selecting one shows how the Shadow applies it and the per-stage steps it expects of the seller. A recommendation for the flow’s deal size is shown at the top.
5. Stakeholders
Section titled “5. Stakeholders”Say who approves and who reviews at each sub-stage. Rows are buyer roles (not named people); columns are your sub-stages. Click a cell to cycle a role between Not involved, Reviewer and Approver. Add roles with + Add stakeholder role, or create one just for this flow with + Custom role.
Approvals feed deal insights; they never block a deal from moving. This matrix also decides which stages each buyer role can see in the Buyer Space.
Click Create flow (or Save changes when editing) to save.
6. Space templates
Section titled “6. Space templates”Once the flow is saved, set up the Buyer Space templates its deals start from, or click Done and come back later. A flow with no live space template gives its Buyer Spaces no widgets to start with. See Space templates.
Connecting a CRM pipeline
Section titled “Connecting a CRM pipeline”If you sync deals from a CRM, map each CRM pipeline and its stages to a deal flow on the CRM’s integration page. See Connecting your CRM.