Pipedrive - is it a CRM? | HowToUseACRM.com

Commercial relationship

HowToUseACRM.com is a certified Pipedrive partner and is paid a commission on referrals to Pipedrive. The evaluation remains our own. Pipedrive is assessed against the same sixteen minimum required features as every other platform on this site, on the same published vendor documentation, and its result is computed from those sixteen verdicts by the same rule applied to every platform. The partnership does not change a verdict, and every verdict can be checked against the sources cited under each feature below.

Every verdict, with its evidence

Core objects

In full

Pipedrive carries separate Deal, Person, Organization and Activity objects. A deal exposes `person_id` and `org_id` association fields, and an activity can be linked to a deal, an organization or a person, appearing on that item's detail page. A deal must be linked to at least one of a person, an organization or a project, so organization association is possible but not compulsory.

Source: https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/activities, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/deals-what-they-are-and-how-to-add-them

Verification: Verified

Pipeline stages

In full

A deal progresses through the ordered stages of a pipeline until it is marked won or lost, and the deal record carries `pipeline_id` and `stage_id` fields. Stages are configurable per pipeline.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/deals-what-they-are-and-how-to-add-them, https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals

Verification: Verified

Status

In full

The deal object itself carries a status attribute taking open, won, lost or deleted, held separately from stage_id. Reading that one attribute tells you whether the opportunity is still live without looking anything up on the stage.

Source: https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals

Verification: Verified

Resolution

In part

The same status attribute on the deal distinguishes won from lost, and the deal also carries won_time and lost_time, each of which the vendor states can only be set when the status is won or lost respectively.

Source: https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals

Verification: Verified

Value

In full

Value ships with a companion currency attribute.

Source: https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/how-can-i-link-products-to-a-deal, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/deals-what-they-are-and-how-to-add-them

Verification: Verified

Scope of work

In full

Products attach as line items with per-deal quantity, price and currency, and can drive deal value.

Verification: Verified

Expected close date

In full

expected_close_date ships, distinct from close_time, won_time and lost_time.

Verification: Verified

Actual close date

In full

close_time is documented as the date and time the deal was closed and can only hold a value once the status is won or lost, and it is separate from expected_close_date. won_time is described as the moment the status changed to won. The knowledge base treats won time as something already present after a deal is marked won, describing how to correct it if a deal was marked won prematurely, which is an admin-only edit.

Source: https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals

Verification: Verified

Opportunity owner

In full

owner_id ships, identifying the owning user.

Verification: Verified

Linked buyer

In full

person_id links the deal to a person, a separate attribute from org_id.

Verification: Verified

Record preservation

In full

Closed opportunities stay in the account. The vendor documents predefined and custom filters for won and lost deals in both the pipeline and list views, and the deal performance report is described as showing how many deals were started, won and lost.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/filtering-for-my-won-lost-or-deleted-deals

Verification: Verified

Structured lost reasons

In full

Deals carry a `lost_reason` field that can only be set when the status is lost. An administrator can switch the free-text entry for a predefined dropdown list, and both forms can be tracked from the deals list view and the progress tab, so the reason is structured and reportable.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/how-can-i-enable-predefined-lost-reasons, https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/Deals

Verification: Verified

Email sync

In full

Email sync connects a Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Outlook.com, Yahoo or iCloud mailbox so mail can be read, sent and replied to from the Sales Inbox and from contact and deal detail views. Mail sent from the user's own client populates the Pipedrive inbox and sent sections, and deleting an email in Pipedrive can also delete it in the connected account, so the flow runs both ways. Smart Bcc is a separate mechanism for manually pushing individual threads in from an external client.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/email-sync, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/how-can-i-choose-which-emails-i-want-to-sync, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/troubleshooting-email-sync-feature, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/smart-email-bcc

Verification: Verified

Calendar sync

In full

Calendar sync connects Google, Exchange, Outlook or Office calendars. With two-way sync enabled, activities created in Pipedrive appear in the linked calendar and events created in the external calendar are created back as Pipedrive activities, with edits on either side updating the linked counterpart. A one-way option is also offered, and IMAP and POP configurations are not supported.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/calendar-sync

Verification: Verified

Schedulable activity types

In full

A Schedule an activity window inside the CRM sets the activity, its owner and its link to a deal, organization or person. Default types cover call, meeting, task, deadline, email and lunch, and a global administrator can add custom activity types with their own name and icon, so internal operational work such as preparing a quote can be modelled.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/activities, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/creating-custom-activity-types

Verification: Verified

Opportunity reporting

In full

All three are named report types in the vendor's own reporting. The deal conversion report has two variants: a funnel variant the vendor describes as showing the conversion rate between pipeline stages, each column a stage with the percentage of deals that reached it, and a win/loss variant showing overall win and loss rates for deals marked won against lost. Because won deals are counted as having completed every stage and lost deals as having stopped where they stopped, the funnel measure reflects progression history rather than a distribution of open deals across stages, and the separate deal progress report, which segments by stage entered, confirms stage-entry data is stored. The revenue forecast report projects from the expected close date on open deals, measured by deal value, weighted value or a custom monetary field, alongside a built-in forecast view running on the same first-class field. All three are purpose-named parts of Pipedrive's own reporting rather than assembled from general-purpose components or supplied by an external BI tool.

Source: https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/insights-reports-deal-conversion, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/insights-reports-revenue-forecast, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/insights-reports-deal-progress, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/the-forecast-view-revenue-projection, https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/insights-report-types

Verification: Verified