Customize a Sales Path

Introduction

You likely go down many paths as you trailblaze your way through life. You may stroll along a garden path, ride a bike path, or beat a path to someone’s door. Or maybe you chose between taking the path of least resistance or going off the beaten path. But has a sales path ever, um, crossed your path?

Like any kind of path, a sales path leads you where you need to go. Using sales paths helps your sales reps adopt and adhere to your company’s sales processes without getting sidetracked. Paths guide your sales users and help them stay focused on important sales tasks so they can close their deals quickly. The Path component is used on the opportunity, lead, campaign, contract, contact, order, and custom object record detail pages in Lightning Experience. For this project, you focus on the opportunity record detail page. Time to get moving.

Follow Along with Trail Together

Want to follow along with an expert as you work through this step? Take a look at this video, part of the Trail Together series. 

Create a Sales Process

A sales process maps out the stages an opportunity follows through its sales cycle, affecting what’s available to view in a sales path. Within a specific sales process, you can easily add and remove stages.

Your VP of Sales has tasked you with helping her sales team more effectively track B2B opportunities. Start by creating a custom sales process for them.

1. Click the setup gear and select Setup.
   
2. Enter Sales Processes in the Quick Find box, then select Sales Processes.
   
3. Click New and fill in these values:
   
   • Existing Sales Process: Master
     
   • Sales Process Name: B2B Sales Process
   • Description: Process for logging sales data for B2B opportunities
     
4. Click Save.
   
5. From the Selected Values menu, highlight these options:
   
   • Value Proposition (Open, 50%, Pipeline)
     
   • Id. Decision Makers (Open, 60%, Pipeline)
     
   • Perception Analysis (Open, 70%, Pipeline)
     
6. Click Remove to move the highlighted options to the Available Values menu.
   

13. Click Save.
    

Create a Record Type

Record types determine the business processes, picklist values, and page layouts that are available to you when creating records. Before you continue creating a customized path for your sales team, you have to create record types corresponding to your new sales process.

Here’s how to create a record type that corresponds with the new B2B Sales Process:

1. From Setup, click the Object Manager tab.
   
2. Click Opportunity.
   
3. Scroll down and click Record Types, then click New.
   
4. Complete the record type details in Step 1:
   
   • Existing Record Type: Master
     
   • Record Type Lable: B2B Opportunities
   • Record Type Name: this field auto-completes
     
   • Sales Process: B2B Sales Process
     
   • Description: Use to log B2B opportunities
   • Active: Yes
     
5. In the Make Available column header, deselect the checkbox.
   
6. In the Make Available column, select Standard User and System Administrator.
   
7. Click Next.
   
8. In Step 2, ensure that the Apply one layout to all profiles checkbox is selected.
   
9. From the Select Page Layout list, select Opportunity Layout.
   
10. Click Save.
    

You’re off to a good start, but there’s still a little distance to cover. Move on to the next step to customize your sales path.