Create an opportunity
Applies To: Dynamics CRM 2013
You can create an opportunity from a qualified lead or you can create a new opportunity for one of your existing customers. You can track the information about each opportunity, such as state and status of the opportunity, the probability of the sale, and the estimated closing date. An opportunity contains important sales information that can be used later in quotes, sales orders, and invoices. The sales information includes:
Products and services from the product catalog and write-in products that you plan to sell
Overridden prices of the products and services from the product catalog
Discounted prices of the products and services from the product catalog and the write-in products
Calculated or estimated revenues
Freight rates
Calculated tax and cost totals
In This Topic
Prepare Data for an Opportunity
Add Existing Products and Write-in Products
Price Overriding
Apply Discounts
Calculate Tax and Totals
Close an Opportunity
Prepare Data for an Opportunity
Before you create an opportunity, ensure that Microsoft Dynamics CRM contains necessary data:
Create accounts, contacts, and leads before you create an opportunity. You can create an opportunity for an existing account or contact, or convert a qualified lead into an opportunity.
Each opportunity must be associated with one account or a contact.
Qualify a lead for an opportunity by using your company’s lead qualification criteria. The possible states for a lead are Open, Qualified, and Disqualified.
If you add products to an opportunity, the system must contain a product catalog, products, price lists, and units of measure.
Add Existing Products and Write-in Products
A single opportunity may be associated with multiple products that include existing products and write-in products. Existing products are a part of the product catalog and are associated with the price lists in the product catalog. Write-in products are products that your company sells, but does not include in the product catalog. The prices of write-in products are not associated with the price lists in the product catalog. An existing product or a write-in product is a line item in the opportunity record. The existing products and the write-in products are represented by the opportunity product entity. To associate the products with a specific opportunity, use the OpportunityProduct.OpportunityId attribute.
To set up a product catalog, products, price lists, and discount lists you must have system administrator privileges.
Add Existing Products from the Product Catalog
To specify an existing product from the catalog, set the OpportunityProduct.IsProductOverridden attribute to false. Specify the following information: product ID (OpportunityProduct.ProductId), price per unit (OpportunityProduct.PricePerUnit), quantity (OpportunityProduct.Quantity) and units of measure (OpportunityProduct.UomId). To associate a price list with the opportunity, use the Opportunity.PriceLevelId attribute. You can add other product-related data, such as tax amount (OpportunityProduct.Tax), volume discount (OpportunityProduct.VolumeDiscountAmount), or manual discount (OpportunityProduct.ManualDiscountAmount).
Add Write-in Products
Although, a write-in product is not in the product catalog, you can add it to an opportunity. To specify a write-in product, set the OpportunityProduct.IsProductOverridden attribute to true. Specify the following information: product description (OpportunityProduct.ProductDescription), price per unit (OpportunityProduct.PricePerUnit), and quantity (OpportunityProduct.Quantity). You can add other product-related data, such as tax amount (OpportunityProduct.Tax), volume discount (OpportunityProduct.VolumeDiscountAmount), or manual discount (OpportunityProduct.ManualDiscountAmount).
Price Overriding
For a write-in product, you can use any price that you want and the quantities that you plan to sell. However, if you add an existing product from the catalog, you have an option to override the list price. To override the list price of the existing product, set the OpportunityProduct.IsPriceOverridden attribute to true. Specify a desired price by using the OpportunityProduct.PricePerUnit attribute.
Apply Discounts
In addition to price overriding, you can apply volume discounts and manual discounts. The discounts can be applied to line items and to a whole opportunity.
For example, if the average order from your customers is for five units of your product, you could create an incentive for your customers to order more than five units by giving them a discount when they order six or more units. A discount can be specified as a percentage or an amount. To specify a volume discount for the opportunity product, use the OpportunityProduct.VolumeDiscountAmount attribute. To specify a manual discount for the opportunity product, use the OpportunityProduct.ManualDiscountAmount attribute. To specify an overall discount for the opportunity, use the Opportunity.DiscountAmount attribute.
Calculate Tax and Totals
The estimated tax and the estimated total value of the opportunity are automatically calculated. The estimated value is based on the combined cost of all products added to the opportunity and the associated price lists. Instead of using the system calculated value, you can specify the estimated revenue for the opportunity. To do this, set the Opportunity.IsRevenueSystemCalculated attribute to false and specify the estimated value in the Opportunity.EstimatedValue attribute.
The breakdown of the opportunity total costs is a follows:
Total amount
Total amount less freight
Total discount amount
Total line item amount
Total line item discount amount
Total discount
Total tax
Having information about individual costs helps you analyze your overall cost. You can make necessary adjustments to pricing, discounts, and freight cost to help with closing a deal.
Close an Opportunity
If a customer decides to purchase products or services from your company, you can close an opportunity as a won opportunity. The opportunity states are specified in the Opportunity.StateCode attribute. If you are using early bound types, you can use the OpportunityState enumeration. For a list of the state values, see see the picklist values for this entity. To view the entity metadata for your organization, install the Metadata Browser solution described in Browse the metadata for your organization. You can also view the metadata for an uncustomized organization in the Excel file called EntityMetadata.xlsx included in the top-level folder of the SDK download.
When you close an opportunity, an activity is created automatically by creating a record of the entity type opportunity close. The states of the opportunity close activity are specified in the OpportunityClose.StateCode attribute. If you are using early bound types, you can use the OpportunityCloseState enumeration. For a list of the state values, see the picklist values for this entity.
The opportunity close activity contains information about the user that created the activity, and the date and time when it was created. It also contains the information about the estimated revenue, close date, and competitor. You can add notes that explain the reasons why you closed the opportunity.
See Also
Opportunity entities
Convert an opportunity to a quote, sales order or invoice
Product catalog entities
Sales entities (lead, opportunity, competitor, quote, order, invoice)
Customer entities (account, contact)
Create early bound entity classes with the code generation tool (CrmSvcUtil.exe)