What is a pipeline deal and what should the record carry?
A pipeline deal is a sales pursuit tracked through the pipeline from qualification to close. The deal record should carry six core property areas: the core fields (name, amount, stage, close date, probability, owner, account) that drive the pipeline math; the activity timeline that lets the rep catch up on any deal in a minute; the scheduled next action that drives next-step discipline; the team roster of internal and external participants; the product line items that compute the deal amount from structured data; and the audit trail that captures every field change for compliance and transparency. A record missing any of these areas typically becomes a chore the reps abandon for a shadow spreadsheet.
What are the required fields on a deal record?
The honest short list is amount, stage, close date, owner, and account. Making more than those required typically backfires: reps leave the required fields blank or fill them with garbage to get past the required check. Additional fields can be stage-gated required (required to advance to Negotiation, not required to create the deal) through the entry and exit criteria mechanism. This pattern makes the data clean at the stages where it matters without blocking deal creation on fields that cannot be known in the early stages. Probability is often computed from the stage default rather than required; the rep overrides on specific deals.
How does the activity timeline capture everything?
The timeline captures six activity types natively. Calls made through the Strkr dialer attach with the recording, AI-generated summary, extracted action items, and sentiment signals. Email threads sync through the Gmail or Microsoft 365 connector with the full thread and reply status. Meetings sync from the calendar connector with attendees and notes. Notes support free-text and structured templates (BANT, MEDDPICC, Challenger). Field changes land in the timeline with actor, timestamp, old value, and new value. Tasks spawn automatically and manually with creation, completion, and overdue status. The six types together give the rep a complete deal history inline on the record without alt-tabbing to the inbox, the calendar, the dialer product, or a separate activity log.
Can the deal record be customized per team?
Yes. The Layouts feature lets a RevOps lead configure the deal record per team: field groups, section ordering, related-list placement, per-field visibility, per-field required state. Enterprise teams see the enterprise fields (contract term, legal review status, security questionnaire, delivery method); SMB teams see a leaner surface. The layout respects the user role; a role can see additional fields the broader team does not. The configuration ships through the Layouts admin surface without engineering. Field-level permissions and conditional-render rules ship in the Layouts Phase 1 feature set.
How does Strkr AI help on the deal record?
Strkr AI reads the deal timeline and produces a one-paragraph summary of where the deal stands: last activity, outstanding commitments from the rep and the buyer, buyer-committee signals surfaced from recent calls and emails, and recommended next steps. The rep uses the summary as the starting point before a customer touch rather than reading the full timeline from scratch; the time saved compounds across every deal in the pipeline. The AI also surfaces risk signals (deal is aging, no decision maker identified, non-standard discount pending approval, competitive pressure mentioned in recent calls) that the rep might otherwise miss. The summary and signals update in real time as new activity lands.
What happens to the deal record after a deal closes?
The deal record persists indefinitely after close. Closed-won deals continue to show on the account record as part of the ongoing customer history; the record feeds the renewal pipeline, the cross-sell motion, and the expansion forecasting. Closed-lost deals also persist with the lost reason code; the lost-deal history feeds the quarterly review and the competitive intel. The audit trail on both continues to carry every change, which satisfies the compliance retention requirement. For teams that run product line items with recurring revenue (annual contracts, multi-year deals), the deal record feeds the renewal workflow automatically through a Strkr Flow that spawns the renewal pursuit at the right lead time before the contract end date.
