Setting up the Database

Once you have a set of key goals, the next step is to establish basic user workflow within the system. This typically involves doing some basic logic to determine which of the key navigation tabs will be needed for your site, and how management and users will locate those records. Which workflow practices are appropriate for your organization will be determined by your specific needs, however, there are five main processes within InsideSales that need to be established right from the start:

Ownership — As discussed in the key definitions section, every piece of data in InsideSales.com, whether Lead, Account, Contact, or Deal, has an owner. A record’s owner is one of the users of the system. One of the key aspects of setting up a consistent workflow is to have an organized system for determining who should own record files at the appropriate points in the process.

Ownership controls are used both for and security purposes. We’ll talk more about this when we go into the employee management sections of the Admin tab, but just to be very clear up front:

The system only reports record activity if the record is owned by the user who does the work. For most accurate reporting, the data should be owned by the person who you ultimately want to report on their effectiveness at doing the work.
All data must have an owner, even if it’s the system administrator. Data ownership can be handed off within the system, but every record will have an owner. The ownership distribution can be done during data entry or after it is entered, just understand that it must be done. We’ll talk about some common ways to do record ownership assignments as we go along.
With very few exceptions, all site security and permission management functions directly revolve around ownership. If a user does not own a group of records, by default they cannot physically see the information in the database, nor can they ever modify data they don’t own. This can of course be overridden, but if a user does not own a piece of data, they are restricted from accessing it in any fashion. Depending on how your site needs to be managed, the data ownership and permission levels will also need to work hand-in-hand.

Campaigns — Campaign organizations primarily belong in the realm of the Leads tab, but also have a number of functions related to reports and data management. When setting up campaigns, the goal is to give managers a clear way to organize common data sets, while giving users a fast, at-a-glance insight into the type or kind of leads they will be working. For example, if I’m a sales rep working for a mortgage company, I’m going to approach a lead assigned to the “Adjustable Rate Mortgage” campaign much differently than a lead assigned to the “Home Equity Loan” campaign.

Lead Sources — Lead sources work hand-in-hand with your campaigns to help users manage data. If I have a lead that is marked as coming from a business-oriented website, I’m going to approach that lead much differently than a lead sourced from a consumer mailing packet, for instance. For management, it is a key tool that tracks the overall effectiveness of the marketing media being used to generate leads.

Record Statuses — All of the main data records—Leads, Accounts, and Deals—are tracked using a status field that denotes the basic state of your company’s relationship with them. These must be updated regularly and consistently for the InsideSales system to work at maximum efficiency. 70 to 80 percent of all system reporting will use the current status of each record as a component within the report. The core of all system activity, and ultimately the overall effectiveness of the system hinge on maintaining accurate statuses.