Overview
As you probably know, each time your CRM sends a Deal to Parallax, a new Project is created in Parallax to match up with that Deal. But what happens when one Deal becomes a part of another Deal? Historically, once the smaller Deal is Sold, the Projects in Parallax can be merged in order to add the smaller Deal as a kind of "passenger" to the larger deal in Parallax, in order to manage a single Project. Up until now, you couldn't associate each Offering to different individual Deals within a Parallax Project.
| What has changed? |
Check out here for a quick summary of what Deal Association is, and what it changes. |
| Merging Projects |
This section breaks down how merging Projects within Parallax has been updated. |
| You can find info here on how Creating new Offerings did/didn't change with Deal Association. | |
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Now that you know how Offerings interract with Deals, this section will explain how you can add/remove Offering from Deals within a Project! |
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The changes to how Projects are merged has some important affects on your Sold Snapshot as you merge new Projects - check out here to find out more! |
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Sometimes Deals are lost; find out more about how Lost Deals within a Project will be handled. |
What has changed?
To easily see what's changed, check out the Integrations page within a Project. As of our July 20, 2023 Release, you'll see that any Offerings within a Project are now grouped by Deal. We call these groupings "associations". While multiple Offerings may still be associated to a single Deal as they have in the past, they may now be individually associated with other Deals within the Project or to the Project as a whole.
While a Project is Pre-Sale, not much has changed - it just looks a little different. Each new Deal you create in your CRM still starts its life in Parallax as a single Project, and each new Offering you create on a that Parallax Project will continue to be associated to that single Deal while in Pre-Sale.
While things look a little different, the changes we've made become most evident once the Project has been Sold, specifically within four different activities, which we've highlighted below:
- Merging Deals
- Adding Offerings Post-Sale
- Dis-Associating/Re-Associating Deals within a Project
- Looking a the Sold Snapshot
Check out below for more info!
How does this affect Deals/Offerings on Projects created prior to 7/20?
In short, it doesn't. Deal Association is entirely optional - it represents a way of organizing Deals *within* each Project. Since there is no options for cross-project Association (i.e. a Deal always has to already be part of Project to associate an Offering to it), it's never required to Associate Deals within a Project.
Offerings created prior to 7/20 remain Associated to the overall Project - so while you absolutely can certainly go back and associate these Offerings to Deals within their Projects, nothing is lost by not doing so.
Merging Projects
Once a Deal is Closed/Won, and has moved to Active Projects, you've always been able to pull other Deals in by merging their Parallax Projects - this isn't new. However, we've changed what this looks like and what you can do after merging!
Historically, you could only merge Active (Closed/Won Projects) and you used a button called "+Add Deal" (found in the Project Integrations page of a Project). We've kept this button on the same page, but we've moved it to the other side of the page, and renamed it "+Merge Project".
Along with this change, you can now merge Pre-Sale Projects (from the Sales Pipeline) into Sold Projects (from Active Projects)! This allows you to begin building constructing a larger Project in Parallax out of smaller CRM Deals while the smaller or satellite Deals are still being sold.
Parallax Tip - Make sure the Clients match!
While you are now able to merge Pre-Sale Projects into Sold Projects, keep in mind that the Clients on Projects need to match! If you're not able to Merge Project, make sure the one you're merging into is Closed/Won, then check the Clients - if the Clients look the same, they may be duplicates that snuck in from your CRM.
Once you've got two or more Projects merged in Parallax, you'll be able to see the Deals associated with separate Offerings. Let's take a look!
All of the Offerings you started with remain Associated to the original/parent Deal, and that Deal will continue to govern the Stage of your Project. Likewise, the satellite Deal(s) associated with the Project that was pulled in through the merge also remain Associated with the Deal that previously governed that Project:
As these Deals continue to be updated by changes in your CRM, you'll see them continue to update here on the Integrations page - but remember, the original Deal continues to act as a parent that determines the Stage, Status and Target Budget of the overall Project within Parallax, so updating the Stages in your CRM for these additional merged Deals will not move the overall Project in/out of the Sales Pipeline.
*Parallax Tip - When merging Projects, do I *have* to Associate them to Offerings?
Absolutely not - this feature exists to make your life easier, not harder. If you'd prefer to Associate all Deals within a Project to that greater Project, instead of individual Offerings, there's nothing stopping you. However, there's nothing lost by Associating your Deals to Offerings - so if the goal is to keep everything tied to one Deal, there's no reason you can't Associate all your Offerings to only to the original/parent Deal on a Project.
Creating New Offerings Post-Sale
Another place you'll see changes pertains to adding Offerings Post-Sale* (to Active Projects). Once a Project is Active, we don't want to make assumptions about which Deal you want to associate each new Offering to. As result, any new Offerings you create Post-Sale will be added to the Project in a new section called "Offerings without Deal Association". What you'll find in Offerings without Deal Association:
- Offerings you've added to the Project Post-Sale
- Offerings that you've manually Associated to the overall Project (see next section)
From here, the Offering can be associated to a specific Deal within the Project by clicking the "+Associate Deal" button and selecting the desired Deal from the list within the Project.
*Parallax tip 1 - Why don't I have to associate a Deal to an Offering for Projects in the Sales Pipeline?
This is because you cannot merge Pre-Sale Projects into other Pre-Sale Projects. Until the Project is Sold and moved to Active Projects, you cannot have add more than one Deal in the Project. As a result, all Offerings you create Pre-Sale will be Associated to that one Deal.
Re-associating/Disassociating Deals within a Project
This is where Deal Association gets fun - Deals within a Project can now be moved from Offering-to-Offering by Associating and Dis-Associating them to different Deals. As a quick review, here are the ground rules, as established above:
- The overall status of the Project in Parallax is still determined by the "parent" deal originally associated with the Project.
- Deals will start off like this:
- Offerings created Pre-Sale on the original "parent" will start associated to the Parent Deal.
- Offerings created Post-Sale will start off associated to the Overall Project, rather than a specific Deal.
- Offerings brought in by a Merge Project in Parallax will start off associated with associated Deal(s) that were pulled in by the merge.
Moving Offerings off of the Deal they're associated to is easy - just click the "Move to Another Deal" button next to the Offering on the Project Integrations page. For example, say we want to move the offering circled below from Example Deal 1 to Example Deal 2:
We just click the "Move to Another Deal" button to open the list of Deals within the Project and select the desired Deal within the Project...
And the Offering will move to that Deal!
If you'd prefer to associate an Offering to the Project overall, rather than any specific Offering, you can move it back to the previously mentioned Offerings without Deal Association grouping by clicking the same dropdown and clicking the "Disassociate from Deal" button.*
Parallax Tip - How do I manage the Offering's Status if it's not Associated with a Deal?
Great question - while the overall Project's Status based on the "parent" deal is going to determine motion between the Sales Pipeline and Active Projects, the other individual Deals still have Stages you can see. How do you track the Status (Pre-Sale or Sold) on an Offering within a Deal that has no Deal Association?
This is something you can do manually, by using the selector next to the +Associate Deal Button - check it out below!
Looking at the Sold Snapshot
The last thing to keep in mind is how Merging Projects will affect your Sold Snapshot.
When the parent Project you're merging into is Awaiting Start, this isn't something you need to worry about - since the Sold Snapshot isn't generated until you move to In Progress.
However, if the parent Project you merge into is In Progress, the Sold Snapshot has been generated and won't be updated by any Offerings you pull in by merging Projects. This may be easy to miss, since the Financial Settings page for a Project defaults to Projected - but you'll see this when changing your view to Sold.
In the example below, the first Offering was created on this Project, the second Offering was from a Project merged in while Awaiting Start, and the third was merged while In Progress. As you can see the third Offering does not contribute to the Sold Snapshot.
Any Offerings added to your Project by a merge can be included in the Sold Snapshot by making a change in Financial Settings and clicking Save to generate a new Sold Snapshot.
What happens if an Associated Deal is Closed/Lost?
We've gone over what happens when a Deal with Associated Offerings is Won, but what happens if it is lost?
Since the "parent" Deal continues to govern the overall Project, if that Deal is Closed/Lost, then the Project as a whole will removed from the Listing Page in the same way it historically has. If one of the other Deals that is not a "parent" is Closed/Lost, it will instead disappear from the Project Integrations page - and any associated Offerings will move to the Offerings without Deal Association grouping, where they can be associated with other Deals in the Project or re-associated to the Deal if it is updated to a non-Lost stage.