The Contact Relationship Management platform in SolarPlus is linked to workflows that help you manage your solar sales and installation business.
Did you know you can connect SolarPlus to almost any external CRM for marketing, job management, etc without coding via Zapier OR create your own integration with our comprehensive API supporting loads of integration options?
See more at Integrations - connecting your world
Structure
Contacts are the top-level CRM record.
Each Contact may have multiple Quotes and these quotes can be duplicated to produce variations and then compared before a final quote is sent to the client.
Each Contact may have quotes for Multiple Sites
The Contact record remains the same for any quote, but staff assignments related to each quote may be unique to that quote.
Contact Details
The Contact page is a snapshot of your dealings with the customer. You can see and edit:
Contact info
Quotes created for this contact showing status colour icons, key indicators, links, and actions.
Emails sent (quotes, handover manual, job pack)
Call logs (manually created)
Job handoff history (between users on SolarPlus)
Files uploaded
Calendar events and appointment scheduling (if the Google calendar is synced)
New quotes can be created from this page, or an existing quote duplicated for variation.
Contact Status
There are 3 statuses that apply to contacts:
Status | Colour | Meaning / automated trigger |
|---|---|---|
Lead | Yellow | customer has not approved a quote |
Active | Green | customer has approved a quote |
Closed | Grey | a user has marked the contact as Closed by clicking the “Close contact and Reject Quotes” button on the CRM page. |
Quote status
There are 6 statuses that apply to quotes. The Quote status is usually updated automatically when an action is taken. For example, when you send a quote from SolarPlus, the status automatically changes from Draft to With Customer.
You can also update the quote status manually in the quote management sidebar. Click the briefcase icon on the top left of the screen to access the sidebar.
Status | Colour | Automated trigger | Numerical code |
|---|---|---|---|
Draft | red | Initial status when quote is created | 0 |
With customer | yellow | Quote is sent by email from Send page | 2 |
Approved | green | Customer signs the acceptance page | 1 |
Rejected | black | If another quote for the customer is accepted and option ‘reject other quotes’ is selected | 3 |
Completed | blue | Commissioning page is saved | 4 |
Modified | purple | Quote is created via ‘create modified quote’ | 5 |
Pipeline Stages
Pipeline stages refer to the various steps or phases that a deal or opportunity goes through in the sales process. The pipeline stages can be customised to align with your organisation’s specific sales workflow. While the exact names and number of stages may vary depending on your setup, here are some common examples of pipeline stages:
New Lead: This stage represents a newly generated lead or prospect that has shown interest in your product or service but has not yet been qualified.
Contacted: At this stage, a sales representative has made initial contact with the lead and started the conversation.
Qualified: The lead has been qualified as a potential opportunity based on specific criteria, such as budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT).
Meeting Scheduled: This stage indicates that a meeting or demo has been scheduled with the qualified lead to further discuss their requirements and present your solution.
Proposal Sent: After the meeting, a formal proposal or quote is sent to the lead, outlining the details of the proposed solution and pricing.
Negotiation: This stage represents the negotiation phase, where both parties may discuss terms, pricing, and any other specific requirements.
Closed-Won: When the negotiation is successfully completed and the lead agrees to move forward, the deal is marked as closed-won, indicating a successful sale.
Closed-Lost: If the deal does not progress to a successful sale, it is marked as closed-lost, indicating that the opportunity did not convert
Each stage is associated with a probability of success, which provides the basis for the calculations in the cashflow forecast report.
Certain pipeline stages update automatically when tasks are complete in SolarPlus, and the stage can be updated manually from the quote management sidebar.
Customer Rep / Contact Owner
The person who creates a new quote is automatically assigned as the Customer Rep. You can transfer the customer to other team members using the customer sidebar, or on the Contacts Page.
The Contacts list view allows you to assign multiple contacts to another user and set them as Customer Rep for the contact and for any quotes.
Customer Sidebar for quick-view and Handoff
Within any quote or install workflow you can view contact information, duplicate any quote for this contact or handoff the quote/job. The handoff function allows you to pass a quote to another team member for them to follow up in their particular job role.
Click on the briefcase in the top left of the screen
Click Handoff Quote
Select the team member and role, then click Notify.
Communication
The communication section shows a record of any emails sent to your customer via SolarPlus. The email status show you whether the email has been delivered, opened, or clicked.
Email statuses
Delivered - the recipient has received the email in their inbox
Open - the recipient has opened the email
Click - the recipient has clicked on the link to the quote acceptance page
Custom Contact Fields
You can add your own custom fields to the contact record. This can be useful to capture any customer-specific information to pass on to the system designer, or to group your customers and evaluate your business' performance. To do this:
In the Admin menu, under Settings, click on Custom Contact Fields
Click + Create Custom Field
Select the field type, apply any validation if required, add a label and even a default value.
Click Submit.
Custom Field Types
Text: A single line of text
Select: Drop-down list, select 1 option.
Hidden: Shhh, it’s a secret
Email: Email address
Number: Integers or decimals
Check box: For yes/no information
Date/Time: Date/Time
Image: Upload an image
User select: Select from your list of users
Text Area: Text box for longer text responses
Radio: select one of a number of options.
You can create a list of your contacts according to your Custom Field Categories. For example you may wish create a custom field called “maintenance” for everyone who has requested a maintenance visit. To create a list of all customers requiring maintenance,
Go to the Contacts page
Click Advanced Search
Select the ‘Maintenance’ custom category you created and click Search.
Lead Source
Use this to record how a customer found out about your business, and evaluate the success of your marketing.
To add sources that are not already on the list,
In the Admin menu, click on Page Settings
Enter the name of the new lead source and click Create
Click in the Add/remove Lead Source Entry, select the new source
Click Update List
Contact Lists
Click on the Contacts link at the top left of the page to view all your contacts. From here you can filter contacts according various attributes, including Status, Categories, creation date, and any Custom Fields you have created.
Import and Export Contact Lists
You can import and export your contacts lists in .csv format at the top of the Contacts Page. When importing a contacts list, please be sure to check that your list has the required fields and that the spelling of the field names match those used in SolarPlus.
Multiple sites for one customer
To quote different systems at different addresses for the same customer, follow these steps:
Open the Contact CRM page for the customer in question.
Click the green Create A Quote button and select New Site
Go to the Energy page
Edit the “Site address” field
Add label