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Pipelines and stages are how VGraple CRM structures the leads board, and most businesses only ever need the one that comes seeded on a new org. This walkthrough covers creating an extra pipeline for a case that genuinely needs separate stages, editing stage names and colours, and mapping a Facebook campaign so its leads route themselves.
Pipelines and stages: first 5 of 7 steps
- 1Open pipeline settings
- 2Create a new pipeline
- 3Expand the pipeline to see its stages
- 4Rename or recolour a stage
- 5Add a new stage
Before you start
- You need the permission that grants access to organisation settings, included in Owner and Admin roles by default; a regular agent role cannot create or edit pipelines.
- Pipelines and stages are available on every plan, including Free, with no cap on how many you create.
- Decide before you start whether you actually need a second pipeline. A second pipeline makes sense when leads genuinely need different stages or different default routing, for example a real-estate agency running one pipeline per active project; it is the wrong tool for simply wanting to filter leads by campaign, which the existing filter and campaign chart already do inside a single pipeline.
- If you plan to map a Facebook campaign to a pipeline, have that campaign already running so it appears in the mapping list; see connecting Facebook Lead Ads first if you have not connected a Page yet.
Steps
- Open pipeline settings. From the sidebar, go to Settings, then Lead Pipelines. You will see every existing pipeline listed with its stage count and lead count.
Create a new pipeline. Click the add button, type a name (for example "Project Meridian Buyers"), and confirm. A new pipeline is created with three default stages already seeded, so it is immediately usable.
Expand the pipeline to see its stages. Click the pipeline row to expand it and see its stage list, each shown with a colour swatch and position.
Rename or recolour a stage. Click the edit icon next to a stage, change its name and pick a colour from the palette, then save. Stage names should reflect your actual sales process (for example "New," "Contacted," "Qualified," "Proposal Sent," "Won," "Lost") rather than generic defaults.
Add a new stage. Click add stage within the pipeline, name it, pick a colour, and it appears at the end of the stage order; drag it into position if it needs to sit earlier in the flow.
Set the pipeline as default, if needed. Click the star or "make default" action on whichever pipeline should catch leads with no specific routing. Only one pipeline can be default at a time; setting a new one automatically unsets the previous default.
Map a Facebook campaign, if you run more than one pipeline. Under the campaign mapping section, pick a campaign from the dropdown, then the pipeline it should route to, and optionally a default assigned agent and a sequence. Every future lead from that exact campaign follows this mapping automatically.
What you will see
Each pipeline row shows its name, a lead count, a stage count, and a default badge on whichever one is currently the default. Expanding a pipeline reveals its ordered, colour-coded stage list with an edit and delete action on each. Any campaign mapping you create appears in its own table, showing the campaign name, the pipeline it routes to, and the assigned agent and sequence if you set them, and takes effect on the next lead that campaign produces.
Settings and options
| Setting or field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline name | Label shown throughout the leads UI and on lead cards | Set when you create the pipeline |
| Default pipeline | Where a lead lands when no other routing claims it | The first pipeline created on your org |
| Stage name and colour | Controls the label and Board column colour for that stage | Three seeded stages on a new pipeline |
| Stage position | Left-to-right order of stages on the Board view | Order created, reorderable |
| Campaign mapping | Routes a specific Facebook or Instagram campaign's leads to a chosen pipeline | None until you add one |
| Mapping's default agent | Auto-fills the assigned team member on a mapped campaign's leads | Unassigned unless set |
| Mapping's sequence | Auto-enrols a mapped campaign's leads into a chosen WhatsApp sequence | No sequence unless set |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Cannot delete a pipeline | It still has leads assigned to it | Move every lead to another pipeline from the Board or List view, then delete |
| A campaign's leads are not routing to the mapped pipeline | The mapping references the wrong campaign ID, or the campaign was recreated in Meta Ads Manager with a new ID | Recheck the campaign dropdown in the mapping section and recreate the mapping against the current campaign |
| A deleted stage's old leads look stuck | Deleting a stage does not reassign leads that were sitting in it | Open those leads individually and move them to a valid stage manually |
| New pipeline has no stages | This should not happen; every new pipeline seeds three default stages automatically | Refresh the page; if stages are genuinely missing, add them manually from the pipeline's expanded view |
| Two team members both think their pipeline is "the" default | More than one pipeline existed before default status was set intentionally | Check Settings > Lead Pipelines for the actual default badge and communicate it to the team |
What is the difference between a pipeline's stages and an appointment's stages?
Lead pipeline stages and appointment stages are two separate settings screens tracking two different things. A lead pipeline stage represents where a prospect sits in your sales process, "New" through "Won" or "Lost." An appointment stage represents the status of a booked slot, "Scheduled," "Completed," "Cancelled" or "No Show," configured separately under managing appointments. A lead that books a consultation can move through both independently: its lead stage might sit at "Qualified" while its linked appointment moves from "Scheduled" to "Completed," because the two track different parts of the same customer's journey.
Example
A clinic keeps one lead pipeline for general enquiries with stages "New," "Contacted," "Booked," "Patient," and a separate appointment stage set for the consultations those leads eventually book, since a lead moving to "Booked" and an appointment moving to "Completed" are two different facts worth tracking on their own.
Should every business bother creating a second pipeline?
Most should not, and it is worth being deliberate about this rather than creating pipelines by habit. A single pipeline with well-named stages, filtered by campaign or tag when you need to look at a subset, covers the majority of businesses cleanly, since the Dashboard's Leads by Campaign chart already answers "how is each campaign performing" without needing separate boards. A second pipeline earns its place specifically when leads genuinely need a different stage sequence, a real-estate project with its own buyer-qualification steps distinct from a rental enquiry, or a completely different default routing, a coaching institute running two unrelated program lines that should never mix on the same board. Creating pipelines freely for every campaign or product tends to fragment the leads dashboard and makes cross-pipeline reporting harder rather than easier.
Example
A D2C store running one Meta Lead Ad campaign for a pre-launch waitlist and another for a giveaway keeps both in a single default pipeline, using the campaign filter to view each separately, since both eventually feed the same "New" to "Customer" sales process.
Once your pipelines and stages match how your team actually works, revisit how lead scoring works to understand how stage position feeds into the score shown on every card.