Converting Leads

When you convert a Lead in Workbooks, the values in standard fields such as Assigned to, Sales Lead Source, Marketing Campaign, and similar default fields will automatically be copied to the corresponding fields in the new Person, Organization, and Opportunity records that are created during the conversion process. If there are custom fields on a Lead record which you also want to appear on the Person, Organization and Opportunity records that are created when a Lead is converted, the same custom fields must also be created on each of those target record types (ie, the fields must have exactly the same name and be of the same data type).

To convert a Lead, open the appropriate Lead record and click Convert. This will bring up a screen like this one: 

1. ‘Create a new Opportunity’ – Uncheck this box if you don’t want to create a new Opportunity. 
2. ‘Opportunity Template’ – If you have record templates configured then you will need to select one for the Opportunity’s creation.
3. ‘Create a new Person’ – Uncheck this if you can a see a relevant person record already exists for the Sales Lead, so that duplicates Person records are not created.
4. ‘Role in Opportunity’ and ‘Status of Person’ – When you create the Person record, Workbooks can create a relationship showing that Person’s role in the opportunity (such as Budget Holder, Advisor, Evaluator, etc) and can record their status (ie, Positive, Negative or Not Known). This relationship and status refer to the specific opportunity you’re creating, not to their general role in the Organization. To choose the appropriate options, use the drop-down menus next to Role in opportunity and Status of person.
5. ‘Create a new Organization’ – Uncheck this if you do not want to create an Organization record or have an existing record showing under the checkbox to select.
6. ‘Copy from Sales Lead’ – If you don’t want to copy over Notes, Activities or Emails onto the new records created.

Click Next to complete the Lead conversion.  If you leave the box next to Create a new opportunity ticked, Workbooks will open a new Opportunity form for you to complete. 

If you would not like the ‘Create a new Person‘ or ‘Create a new Organization‘ tick boxes to be automatically ticked each time you convert a lead, go to Start > Configuration > Database > Database Settings. Go to the ‘Sales Lead’ section at the bottom of the page and uncheck the appropriate tick boxes. 

When converting a Sales Lead, the value of the Assigned to field on the Lead will typically be set on any new records that are created during the conversion process. This behavior is managed by the ‘Maintain Assigned to from Sales Lead’ setting. If this setting is enabled, the new Person, Organization, and Opportunity records will inherit the Assigned to value from the original Lead. However, if you update this setting, any new records created during Lead conversion will instead be Assigned to the user who is performing the conversion process by clicking the Convert button. 

The converted Leads remain on your database for historical purposes which allows you to carry out statistical analysis, for example:  How many leads did we create in each month last year?  How does that compare with this year? and so on. 

If historical Sales Leads are not of use to the operations at your company then you may delete them. 

After a Lead has been converted, the system updates Sales Lead Status to reflect the outcome of the conversion process. If an Opportunity is created during the conversion, the Lead’s status is set to ‘Converted’ In cases where no Opportunity is created when clicking the ‘Convert’ button, the status is updated instead to ‘Converted – No Opportunity’ This distinction helps clarify whether the conversion resulted in a new business opportunity or simply the creation of Person or Organization records.