Overview of the Steps to Create Guidances

Here's an overview of the steps to create guidances that guide salespeople through best practices to qualify a lead or get an opportunity from qualification to sale.

Step	Description	Navigation	Where to Get More Details
1	Because a guidance can have many objectives, steps, and branches, create a logical diagram of the process.	None.	See the topics: Guide Salespeople Through Best Practices Leads Guidance Example
2	If you're planning to create a guidance for opportunities, then create or identify the appropriate sales method you're going to use. The sales method becomes the scaffolding for your guidance. The sales stages in the sales method become the guidance stages.	Setup and Maintenance > Sales > Opportunities > Manage Sales Methods and Sales Stages	See the topic: Create Sales Methods and Stages
3	Create the guidance. Guidances for sales leads take salespeople through the different stages of the qualification process. There's one guidance stage for each lead status. For opportunities, you specify the sales method and guide salespeople through guidance stages that are equivalent to the sales stages of the sales method you selected. You can add conditions to the guidance so it runs only on a specific set of records. For example, you can trigger different guidances depending on the account, partner, sales channel, asset, close date, competitor, and so on.	Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Guidance Setup > Create Guidance	See the topics: Guidance Stages Enter Basic Details for the Guidance Leads Guidance Example
4	For each guidance stage with manual steps, create the objectives salespeople must accomplish to move to the next stage. Salespeople can view which objectives have been met as they work and can complete the tasks in any unmet objectives. The objectives themselves don't play any role in the logic of the guidance. They're there merely to inform salespeople what objectives they've accomplished or skipped.	With the guidance open, click a sales stage and select the Objectives tab.	See the topics: Guidance Objectives Create the List of Objectives Leads Guidance Example
5	Create the steps for each guidance stage. You can create the steps either as a diagram or as a list. You create each step in two phases: You add the step and select its type and an optional smart action. You edit the step properties to enter the step details. What you enter depends on the step type you selected. Review the validations and minimum requirements. For example, you must add at least one Next Stage step to every stage to move the guidance to the next guidance stage. The guidance doesn't move to the next stage on its own. And you must end all branches with a Stop step.	With the guidance open, click a guidance stage and select either Diagram or Steps.	See the topics: Manual and Automatic Steps Types of Guidance Steps Two Ways of Creating Guidance Steps Create Guidance Steps as a Diagram Create the Guidance Steps on the Steps Tab Guidance Validations and Minimum Requirements Leads Guidance Example
6	Get ready to test your guidance. Before each test, you must create up to 3 records that you'll use for testing. The records must meet the selection criteria you entered in the guidance and any other criteria you enter during testing. For example, if your guidance runs on all opportunities with win probabilities greater than 30 percent, then you can add the condition to select only those with a specific name, such as Test1, for example. To avoid spamming real customers with automated steps, don't include customer email addresses in the test records. Create yourself as a contact instead.	Open either the Opportunity or Leads work areas and create your test records from there.	See the topic: Test a Guidance
7	Run the Associate Guidances process to associate existing records to new guidances. You can run this process on a schedule. After a guidance is active, new records are associated with it automatically.	Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes	See the topic: Associate Records to Guidances
8	If your guidances include failure paths (steps that follow up when things don't go as planned), then run the Process Guidance Overdue Events process on a schedule. This process ensures that overdue steps don't cause guidances to stall.	Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes	See the topic: Ensure That Overdue Steps Aren't Left Hanging
9	Test your guidance. The application performs the validations and displays any errors, one error at a time. For example, you can't test a guidance if some of the steps aren't properly linked to other steps. All wait steps are left out of the testing. If everything checks out, then open one of the test records to see the run-time behavior. When you're done, select End Testing.	Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Guidance Setup > Action > Start Testing	See the topic: Test a Guidance
10	Activate the guidance to make it available for use. If two guidances apply to the same records, then the one with the lowest rank is evaluated first.	Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Guidance Setup > Action > Activate	See the topic: Activate a Guidance
11	If you must make changes to a guidance that's in the Active status, you must clone it first. You make your changes in the clone and then activate the clone. After the clone is active, you can archive the previous version. Any opportunities that are currently in the middle of the running the archived guidance continue with the archived guidance. Caution: You can't take any action on a guidance after you archive it.	Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Guidance Setup > Action > Clone	See these topics: Edit a Guidance Remove a Guidance from Use by Archiving It