From lead capturing to its closure, there could be multiple processes in between. Each of these processes may consist of many stages. Just to cite an example, a Deal Follow-up process consists of several stages before you win or lose a deal, such as qualification, negotiation, value proposition, etc. If you are able to capture each stage thoroughly, it will help to pursue the deal in the correct manner. It will also let you get away with the shortcomings and anomalies encountered in the process.
One way to make things go right on track is to create a blueprint by using the functionality of ZOHO Blueprint. Yes, ZOHO CRM extends the capabilities of its Blueprint to track every small to big detail carried out offline and captures it in the software. It makes your business more efficient and error free by automating, validating and collaborating with your teams.
What can you do with a Blueprint?
Simply put, a Blueprint enables you to carry out a business process in an organized manner. For every process, it allows you to:
- Define and associate the best team with every stage
- Guide your teams on process execution
- Validate and mandate and information
- Automate the customary tasks
Blueprint components
States and Transitions are the two building blocks of ZOHO Blueprints. Let’s know about them in detail.
States
Every stage in a process is a state. For example:
- Waiting for Approval and Approved are the two states associated with the Approve
- A CRM deal has to pass through different stages of Qualification, Negotiation and Discount approval until follow-up. Each of these stages is a state.
To depict a state in a Blueprint, you just need to drag and drop it into the Blueprint Editor.
Transitions
Just as its usual meaning, a transition refers to the change of state of a particular process from one to another. Simply put, it acts as a link between two states. There can be multiple transitions for a state depending on the conditions.
For example:
- You can refer transitions to the actions or conditions needed for a record to move from Qualification to Negotiation stages as transitions. Here you can call the transition block as “Negotiate”.
- The conditions and actions needed for a process to move from the state of Waiting for Approvalto Approved would act as transitions. Here you can call the transition block as “Approve”.
In the Blueprint builder, you can display transitions in the form of ‘arrows’.
Conditions of a Transition
Be it a sales deal, or any other CRM process, you can divide each transition into Before, During and After conditions.
- Before: This condition decides the agent responsible to proceed with a transition for the specified records.
- During: It checks the information, such as specific actions, field updates, etc. that the transition owner would need to execute to complete the transition.
- After: It refers to the execution of some automated actions after the completion of a transition. Some examples may include Send Email, Custom Functions or Make field updates.
How to design a Blueprint?
To be precise, building the blueprint of a process includes 3 steps.
- Enter Basic Info: It requires you to mention the module, layout and field for which you want to create the process.
- Process Flow definition: Use the blueprint editor to define the process flow right from the starting to the exit state.
- Configure transition settings: This step requires you to configure the transition settings of Before, During and After conditions between various states as per the requirement of the process.
Please feel free to contact us if you want complete assistance on creating the Blueprint of any of your business processes. As an authorized ZOHO Consultant, we are committed to helping you the best way possible in your stint with the ZOHO CRM.
Benefits of Blueprint
Now that you have gained a settled idea about the ZOHO Blueprints, let’s know about the benefits of this tool.
- It outlines the details of the process at every stage that you would like your agents to record
- It helps to estimate the time your support processes would take to complete
- It enables you to align your support process with ZOHO CRM
- It guides your agents throughout the ticket handling process and helps them to get to task on their own.
- The graphs and reports created through Blueprint let you know about the time your agents spend on each stage and the time they take to proceed to the next stage.
To conclude, Blueprint gives an idea about the processes and helps to associate them with your ZOHO CRM account. You can create a blueprint of any of your business processes with the help of ZOHO Blueprint builder. If while creating it you need any type of assistance, please let us know. We will be quick to provide you the requisite assistance.