Sales

Prevent lead build-up by bulk processing leads

If you need to disqualify a group of leads, or if you decide a group of leads are all good, you don't have to process them one by one. Instead, put the leads into a marketing list, and then disqualify the whole group or qualify them by converting the whole group into accounts, contacts, or opportunities in one step.

Create a new marketing list:
1. In the Navigation Pane, click Marketing or Sales, and then click Marketing Lists.
2. On the Actions toolbar, click New.
3. In the Name box, type a name for the list, and in the Member Type box, select Lead.
4. Click Save.
Under Details, click Marketing List Members.
On the Actions toolbar, click Manage Members.
In the Manage Members dialog box, click Use Advanced Find to add members, and then click OK.
Create a query to find the list of leads to disqualify or convert:
1. From the Use Saved View list, select My Open Leads.
2. Then, add any additional criteria. For example, add criteria to show all your open leads created before 8/31/2007. First, click Select and select Created On. Next, click On and select On or After instead. Finally, click Select date and specify August 31, 2007.
Tip

If this query is one that you'll use again, click Save As, and specify a name for the query.
Click Find.
Select one of the option buttons at the bottom of the window to either add all the leads returned by the search to the list, or to add only selected leads to the list, and then click Add to Marketing List.
In the marketing list, select all the records on the page by selecting the Select/clear all records on this page check box at the upper left of the list. Notice that this selects only the leads on the current page.
Tip

By default, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web application displays 50 records per page. You can increase the number of records displayed and thereby increase the number of records you can select at one time. To display up to a maximum of 250 records per page:
1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the General tab, in the Records Per Page list, select the number of records to display per page.
3. Click OK.
4. Refresh the Marketing List Members list.
This changes the number of items that is displayed for all lists, which may slow response time when you switch record types. Therefore, you might want to set it back to a smaller number when you are done with this bulk action.
After you select the leads you want to convert, on the More Actions menu, click Convert Lead.
In the Convert Lead dialog box, disqualify the leads, or select the record types to convert the lead to, and then click OK. The leads will still appear on your marketing list, but will no longer appear in your My Open Leads view.