Stage Management

Purpose: Stages represent the major milestones in your contact's journey. Setting them up helps you track where every contact is in the process and what needs to happen next.

Before You Begin

You'll need:

• Admin or Owner access to your Sure Send account
• A clear picture of your customer journey from first contact to close (and beyond)

ProTip: Think of stages as big milestones, not micro-tasks. If you find yourself creating dozens of stages, consider using sub-stages or custom fields instead.

Part 1: Access Stage Management

1. Click Settings in the left navigation.
2. Under Pipeline & Workflow, click Stages.
3. You'll see tabs for People, Companies, and Contracts. Start with People for your contact stages.

Part 2: Create Stages

1. Click + Add Stage (top right corner).
2. Enter a Stage Name (e.g., "New Lead," "Qualified," "Proposal").
3. Select a Color for the stage.
4. Select an Icon from the dropdown (optional).
5. Leave Parent as "None (Top-level stage)" for main stages.
6. Ensure Active Stage is checked (inactive stages won't be available for new assignments).
7. Click Create Stage.
8. Repeat for each stage in your journey.

Part 3: Add Sub-stages (Optional)

Sub-stages let you track more specific steps within a parent stage without cluttering your main stage list.

1. On the stage card, click + Add sub-stage.
2. Enter a Stage Name (e.g., under "Application Received" you might add "Documents Pending," "In Underwriting," "Conditionally Approved").
3. Select a Color for the sub-stage.
4. Select an Icon from the dropdown (optional).
5. The Parent field will automatically show the parent stage.
6. Ensure Active Stage is checked.
7. Click Create Stage.

Want to go deeper? See Stage Management: When to Use Sub-stages → for guidance on when sub-stages make sense versus custom fields or tags.

Part 4: Reorder Stages

Arrange stages to match your actual workflow order.

1. Click and drag any stage using the handle on the left side of the stage card.
2. The new order saves automatically.

Example: Contact Journey Stages

Here's an example stage structure for reference:

Customize this to fit your specific business process.