Lead Classes: General Information

In MYOB Acumatica, you can group leads into classes based on specific characteristics. The use of lead classes may help you quickly and effectively manage your marketing and sales processes, including lead acquisition, conversion of leads to opportunities, creation of customers, and preparation of financial reports.

This topic provides information about lead classes.

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, you will learn how to do the following:

Create a lead class
Select the lead class that the system will use by default for each new lead

Applicable Scenarios

You may want to learn how to create lead classes in scenarios that include the following:

You need to give users the ability to group leads that represent companies of the same industry, such as banks, supermarkets, or pharmacies.
You need to give users the ability to group leads that represent companies of the same business sector, such as manufacturers, merchandisers, or service providers.
You need to give users the ability to group leads that have been acquired through such sources as an organic search, a marketing campaign, or a purchased list.
You need to set up the system to automatically assign new leads to the appropriate owners.

Defining of Lead Classes

In MYOB Acumatica, you can group leads into classes and gather different sets of additional information about the leads in each class. You can define classes on the Lead Classes (CR207000) form based on your company’s business needs. Lead classes help you quickly distribute leads between owners, define a default email account for sending emails to leads, and enter the settings of contacts, business accounts, and opportunities you create based on the lead.

A lead class is a grouping entity for leads that share at least one common characteristic. Lead classes are used for reporting purposes and for providing default values during data entry of individual leads. When a user creates a lead, the user can first select the applicable lead class, which causes the system to use the values of the class as default values for the lead. The system also loads any attributes—UI elements that you can configure, specifying their names, control types (check box, text box, or combo box), and possible values (for boxes with predefined options)—that you have defined for the class, so that the user can enter these values for the lead.

On the Lead Classes form, you can specify the following settings for each lead class:

The identifier and description of the lead class.
The default source for creating new leads; the system will insert this source for a new lead of the lead class.
The way the system determines the default owner of a lead of the lead class, which can be the user who creates the lead, a user determined through an assignment map, or an owner inherited from the source entity if the lead is created from another entity.
The map to be used for the automatic assignment of a lead of the class during lead creation if the default owner is determined through an assignment map.
The identifiers of the contact class, business account class, and opportunity class that the system specifies by default for a new contact, business account, or opportunity created based on a lead of the class. (Thus, the default class settings will be inserted for the new contacts, business accounts, and opportunities, so you can create them more quickly.)
The setting that makes the creation of a business account required during the lead conversion.
The opportunity stage to be set as the default one for a new opportunity that is created based on a lead of the class.
The default email account that can be used for sending emails to the leads of the class.
The attributes that are listed as additional elements for leads of the lead class, as well as whether each attribute is required or optional.

If your company no longer needs a particular lead class, you can remove it from the system only if no existing leads has that lead class specified.

Use of Lead Classes

Lead classes make the creation of leads faster and more accurate. When a user is creating a lead on the Leads (CR301000) form and selects a lead class on the CRM Info tab, the system fills in the values specified for the class; these default values can be overridden.

For each lead class, you can define a set of attributes, which give users the ability to specify additional information about leads within the class. An attribute is a characteristic or quality—such as industry, number of employees, or company revenue—that is important to your company but is not already tracked on the Leads form. When a user selects a lead class for a new lead, the attributes of this class appear on the Attributes tab of the Leads form as additional elements for which the user selects the appropriate values. For more information about the use of attributes in MYOB Acumatica, see Attributes.

On the Leads form, for a lead class, a system administrator can also define a set of user-defined fields, which hold the values of attributes. As soon as the user-defined fields have been added to the form, the system displays the Document and User-Defined Fields tabs in the Summary area. The user-defined fields are displayed as UI elements on the User-Defined Fields tab. They can be required or optional, depending on the settings defined by the system administrator. For more information about user-defined fields, see User-Defined Fields.

If a particular lead class is used far more than the others, you can specify the default lead class on the General tab of the Customer Management Preferences (CR101000) form (Data Entry Settings section). The system will insert this default class for each lead that you create in the system. If a default lead class is specified, when a user creates a lead by using the Leads form, the system inserts this class into the Lead Class box of the CRM Info tab of the Leads form. It also inserts the default settings associated with the lead class.

If you create a lead by using the Contacts (CR302000) form, the system may insert a different class than the default lead class: If a lead class is specified on the Contact Classes (CR205000) form for the contact class of the contact from which you are creating the lead, this lead class is inserted.

If you change the lead class of a lead, the system inserts the default settings specified for the newly selected class.

Example of Lead Classes and Attributes

Consider the following example of the use of lead classes and attributes.

Tip: Attributes and classes are used similarly for leads, contacts, business accounts, marketing campaigns, opportunities, and cases.

Suppose that you sell two products, one for resale by retailers and the other for direct corporate use. You handle many leads and would like to divide them into groups based on whether they are related to a retail store or to a corporation. You can create two classes for these leads:

The Retail class, for leads associated with retail stores of various sizes: This class might contain an attribute called Size with the values Small, Midsize, and Big corresponding to the store size, as well as other attributes to give you additional information about these stores.
The Corporate class, for leads associated with organizations that are final consumers: Because some organizations may be tax-exempt, you might define an attribute called Tax Status with two possible values, Tax-Exempt, and Taxable. Another attribute, Company Type, might have such values as Corporation, Hospital, University, and School.

With these classes and their attributes configured in the system, when a user creates a new lead on the Leads (CR301000) form and selects a lead class on the CRM Info tab, the attributes of the class appear on the Attributes tab. The user can enter the needed attribute values for this lead.