17hats Pipelines bring together Workflows, Project Tagging, and Automation to provide a clear snapshot of where your leads and clients are in their journey.

The visual that Pipelines provide will allow you to manage your Projects better, see strengths and weaknesses in your process, and make decisions more quickly.

This feature is available for our Founding and Premier Members.

Watch our walkthrough on 17hats University.

Pipeline - a visual representation of where your leads and clients are in your client experience.

Phase - A Pipeline is made up of five or fewer Phases. Phases are the steps or actions that move them through the Pipeline.

Project Tag - 17hats has two types of Tags: Contacts and Projects. Because your Pipelines follow your Projects, Project Tags move Projects into, through, and out of Pipelines.

Status - there are three Project statuses within the Pipelines feature.

Completed State: The Completed State is associated with a Project Tag, which moves Projects out of the Pipeline.

There are two types of Pipelines: Lead and Client. You can have up to five active Lead Pipelines and five active Client Pipelines. Each Pipeline can have up to five Phases.

Projects enter a Pipeline and move through its different Phases with Project tags. Once your Project is tagged with the Completed State tag, your Project will be removed from the Pipeline.

Because Project Tags define Phases, it is important to add and remove Project tags so that your Pipeline Phases only display relevant Projects.

Pipelines consist of up to five Phases, each defined by a Project Tag or a time period. Phases represent the steps your Projects take through the Pipeline.

The first Phase of a Pipeline starts with a Project Tag. This means when a Project is tagged with this specific Project Tag, it will enter the Pipeline and the first Phase.

For the second through fifth Phases, you can select from two different Phase types:

A ‘By Tag’ Phase allows the Phase to be associated with a Project tag. This means that when the Tag is added to the Project, the Project will automatically show in that Phase.

For the Phase type, “By Days in Prior Phase”, you allow the Project to move to the next Phase after a specific amount of time in the prior Phase.

Example: If Project A enters Phase One, and the second Phase is a “By Days in Prior Phase” type and the number of days is one, then the Project will automatically move to Phase Two the next day.

A Project moving based on a “Days Phase” will move at approximately the same time it entered the original tag Phase.

Example: If a Project enters the tagged Phase at 6 pm, it will move into the day Phase at 6 pm at the given timeframe.

Each Pipeline has an optional Completed State, which is defined by a Project Tag. When the Completed State Project Tag is picked up for an Active Project in the Pipeline, the Project will be removed from the Pipeline.

You can view all Completed Projects by using the Completed Filter at the top of the Pipeline view.

Pro Tip: Allow the Completed Tag from one Pipeline to be the first Tag of your next Pipeline.

Projects enter, move through, and complete the Pipeline based on Project Tags. Here are a few items to note:

Because each Phase is associated with a Project tag, if you do not remove the Project Tag associated with the previous Phase, your Project will be active in two different Phases.

Allowing your Projects to be in multiple Phases will be valuable if you have a complex process and/or Workflow.

Archiving your Projects is the quickest way to keep your 17hats brand, including your Pipelines, clean and accurate.

Projects are immediately removed from the Pipeline when archived, even if you do not remove the associated Project Tag.

Your Tags for the Project are found on the right rail of the Contact's Project.

There are multiple ways you can add Project Tags to your Projects.

Lead Capture Forms, Workflows, Online Scheduling, and Choose From A List Questions are ways to add Project Tags to your Projects automatically.

You can also manually add Project tags when creating a Project or by using the “edit” button in the top right corner of any Project.

You may Bulk Add Tags to Projects on 17hats's Project overview page. For more information, please see this article about Bulk Adding Project Tags.

While you can manually remove Project Tags, you can automate the removal of tags through:

Q: Can a Project appear in two Phases at the same time?

A: Yes, if the Project has the Tags associated with both Phases, the Project will appear in both Phases

Q: Can a Project go through a Pipeline more than once?

A: Yes, a Project can go through a Pipeline multiple times. If you are using a Completed Phase Tag, the Project will complete the Pipeline multiple times and you will see the completed dates under the Completed view.

Q: If I Archive a Project, will it still appear in the Pipeline?

A: No, if you archive a Project it will no longer appear in the Pipeline. If the Project completed the Pipeline and was then Archived, it will still appear in the Completed view.

Q: If I Unarchive a Project, will it re-enter the Pipeline?

A: Yes, it will automatically re-enter the Pipeline in the same Phase as when you Archived the Project as long as the Project Tag associated with that Phase was not removed.