Pipelines & stages

Who can use it. Owners (Settings is an owner-only area). Everyone else works the board; nobody else changes its shape.

Where it lives. Settings → Deals & pipeline → Pipelines & stages. The ⚙ Manage stages button used to sit at the top of the board: it is here now, one per pipeline, alongside everything else about how your pipelines are set up.

If your deals live in HubSpot, this tab isn't there at all: your pipelines and stages are set up in HubSpot, and Summit reads them from there. If you haven't created a pipeline yet, the tab tells you so and points you at the deals board, where the Create starter pipeline button sets up your first one.

What a pipeline is

One board of work. Most builders only ever need the one. A second is worth having when a genuinely different kind of job moves through genuinely different steps: maintenance callouts that go *Callout → Quoted → Booked → Done* while new builds run the full lead-to-contract ladder. Two pipelines means two boards you switch between at the top of the Pipeline page, not two columns on one board.

If you only need to *reorder* or *rename* columns, that is stages, not pipelines: Manage stages below.

Adding a pipeline

Type a name into New pipeline name and click + Add pipeline. It starts with the standard New Lead → Quoting → Quote Sent → Closed / Lost stages; rename them from Manage stages.

A new pipeline is not your default. The Default one is where new deals and website enquiry forms land unless something says otherwise; Make default moves that badge.

Renaming one

Click the pencil next to the pipeline's name to open an editable field with Save and Cancel buttons. Press Enter to save, or Escape to cancel. Clicking away without pressing Save or Enter leaves your typing in place rather than saving it, so it's safe to click somewhere else in the panel (Manage stages, say) without accidentally renaming anything. Deals aren't touched by a rename.

Managing a pipeline's stages

Manage stages opens the stage list for that one pipeline: rename a column, drag it into a new position, add one, remove one, or switch it between Open, Won and Lost. That is the same dialog as before, with the same rules: docs/features/pipeline-board.md explains the Open / Won / Lost switch and why a column can vanish from the board.

Close the dialog with its × or by pressing Escape. Either way the keyboard lands back on the Manage stages button you opened it from, so Tab carries on from where you were in the panel instead of restarting at the top of the page.

Deleting one

You can't delete your only pipeline: there has to be somewhere to file a deal. The Delete button stays visible and reachable by keyboard even then, so a screen reader or keyboard user isn't left guessing why nothing happens; it shows a note explaining why, and clicking it moves you straight to New pipeline name so creating a second pipeline is the very next step.

An empty pipeline with no enquiry form pointed at it goes on one confirm. Its stages go with it.

A pipeline with deals in it asks where they go: pick another pipeline and one of its stages, and every deal moves there. Only open stages are offered (never Won or Lost), so a delete can't quietly mark a dozen live jobs as won or start filing new enquiries as already closed. It defaults to that pipeline's first open stage. A pipeline with nowhere open to land (every one of its stages is Won or Lost) can't be picked as a destination; it's shown greyed out with a reason, so you either manage its stages first or choose a different pipeline. Everything on a deal comes with it: the quote, notes, files, photos, schedule and client portal are all attached to the deal, not the pipeline.

A pipeline a website enquiry form points at also asks for a destination, even when it holds no deals, and the form is re-pointed to it. That matters: a form left pointing at a pipeline that no longer exists would keep taking enquiries and quietly fail to file any of them. Check the form afterwards in Settings → Client experience: the enquiry will land in the stage you chose here, which may not be where you want new leads to start.

Deleting your default pipeline tells you up front which pipeline becomes the new default, before you confirm. If the delete needed a destination (deals or an enquiry form to move), that destination pipeline becomes the new default: you already said that's where this work goes. If the pipeline was empty and needed no destination, your oldest remaining pipeline becomes the default instead.

Deleting is not undoable. Nothing about a deal is lost, though: a deleted pipeline's deals are moved, never removed.

Changed your mind? Cancel closes the confirmation and puts the keyboard back on that row's Delete button, so nothing is lost from your place in the panel.

Client details for new deals

Below your pipelines, Client details for new deals decides what someone must fill in about the client when they create a deal with New Deal + on the board. Tick Name, Phone and/or Email, then click Save client details.

• Nothing ticked (the starting point) keeps the client optional, so you can log a phone enquiry before you know who's calling.
• Anything ticked means a deal can't be created without a client. The required boxes stop saying "(optional)", and a missing one turns red and blocks Create deal until it's filled in.
• Phone or Email needs Name too. A client can't be saved without a name, so ticking either one ticks Name for you.
• Picking an existing client who's missing a required detail asks for it in the dialog and saves it to their contact along with the deal.
• Only deals made by hand are affected. Deals from website enquiry forms, automations and imports are created exactly as before.

The contact boxes on a deal's summary follow the same setting: a detail you require doesn't say "(optional)" there either.

If something won't load

If Pipelines & stages shows an error instead of your pipelines, that's a temporary problem loading the page, not something wrong with your account or data. Click Try again; if it keeps happening, contact support.

A note on saving

Every pipeline action (adding, renaming, deleting, setting a default, editing stages) applies straight away. There's no separate save button and nothing to lose by navigating away afterwards. Client details for new deals is the one exception: it has its own Save client details button.