Follow a lead from creation through closure

A lead record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online represents a potential customer who must be qualified or disqualified as a sales opportunity. You can use leads to manage potential sales from the point at which you become aware of a customer's interest through the successful sale.

The following diagram illustrates the ways that you can create a lead and convert it to several different record types.

There are several ways that you can create a lead in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online:

• Create the lead manually.
• Convert a campaign response into a lead. For more information, see Follow a campaign response through the marketing process.
• Import leads into CRM from an external file.

After you create the lead, you can convert it into any of the following three record types:

• Account
• Contact
• Opportunity

When you convert the lead to an opportunity, you can also choose to link the new opportunity to the new accounts or contacts you may have created, or to an existing account or contact in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online database.

Follow an opportunity from creation through closure

An opportunity is a potential sale or possible revenue from an account or contact.

The following diagram illustrates the ways that you can create an opportunity and close it when the potential customer decides whether to move forward with the sale.

There are several ways that you can create an opportunity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

• Create the opportunity manually.
• Convert a lead into an opportunity. For more information, see Follow a lead from creation through closure.
• Import opportunities into Microsoft Dynamics CRM from an external file.

When you know whether or not the customer is going to move forward with the sale, you can close the opportunity with a status of either Won or Lost.