Navigate opportunity workflows in Inpart Deal

Inpart Deal allows you to speed up your decision-making process by following a configurable workflow through which the opportunities can be tracked and evaluated by Search and Evaluation and Business Development teams.

Overview

Plan availability: Essential/Advanced
Required user role: Manager

The standard opportunity workflow is based on two parameters working together: the stage and the status.

Disclaimer: The names of the stages and statuses in this article reflect the default names offered by Inpart Deal. As workflows can be customized according to your company's preferences, the names of the stages and statuses displayed in your personal instance might be different. However, the behavior patterns are the same.

Opportunity stage

The stage of the opportunity reflects the phase of the project.

The number and the names of the stages are configured with the help of Inpart when your company starts using Inpart Deal.

Your company can configure several workflows to fit different opportunity types: in-licensing, out-licensing, research collaboration, acquisition, investment, etc...

However, all your workflows share a common structure:

• A first stage, the identification stage.
• A second stage, the triage stage.
• After the second stage, a succession of custom stages is specifically configured to fit your company's process.
• A closing stage.

Opportunity status

The status of the opportunity reflects the state of the project. 

The names of the statuses are configured with the help of Inpart when your company starts using Inpart Deal. By default, all opportunities have four statuses available (these are the default names, they may vary depending on what your company configured, except for Active which isn't customizable):

• Active: An opportunity is set as Active when you and your team are currently evaluating it. 
• On-hold: You can use the On-hold status to pause an opportunity that is too early or lacks information to be properly considered.
• Declined: You can decline an opportunity when you have determined that it's of no interest to your company.
• Closed: An opportunity with a Closed status means you've reached a positive conclusion for this opportunity. 

The opportunity stage and status are visible in the list of all opportunities or within each opportunity's overview materialized by a workflow ribbon.

Opportunity list:

Opportunity overview:

Update the opportunity stages

You can see the date of transition between stages under each stage name in the workflow ribbon. These dates can be updated to reflect the reality of the work done by you and your team.

User role required: Manager with Business Admin rights

First stage - Identification

In the first stage (called Identification by default), you identify and create drafts for potential new opportunities. You can provide initial non-confidential information, review high-level information, and perform a quick assessment.

By default, all newly created opportunities are set to start in the first stage. You can't create an opportunity and directly set it to a stage further down in the workflow.

In the first stage, the opportunity status can either be Active or Declined. Select Declined to filter out and decline opportunities that don't fit your company strategy. 

A confirmation message will pop up. Here, you need to provide a reason to decline the opportunity, then click Confirm. 

Second stage - Triage

The second stage corresponds to a triage step (called Triage by default) when you begin your research and determine how to proceed with the opportunity's evaluation. You can add additional non-confidential documents, e.g. a company presentation, some data, or meeting notes. This stage typically involves a few experts that you regularly collaborate with.

Warning: Once you moved the opportunity to the second stage (Triage), you won't be able to move back to the first stage (Identification), so make sure the opportunity is fully ready to be moved to this triage stage.

To move an opportunity to this stage, click the Triage stage on the workflow ribbon. A confirmation message will pop up, click Move.

In this triage stage, the opportunity status can either be set to Active, On-Hold, or Declined. You can: 

• Change an Active opportunity to On-Hold or Declined.
• Change an On-Hold opportunity to Active or Declined.
• Change a Declined opportunity to Active. To move a Declined opportunity back to On-Hold, you must first move it to Active and then to On-Hold. 

Third stage - Choose your opportunity type (optional)

If you haven't selected the opportunity type (i.e. workflow type) when creating the opportunity, reaching the third stage, you'll be asked to choose it.

Click To be defined in the workflow ribbon, a pop-up will appear. In this pop-up, you can see the list of stages that will apply once the opportunity type selected, as well as a description of the projects the opportunity type can cover. Select the opportunity type and click Next.

The pop-up will display a confirmation message with the name of the stage to which your opportunity will be moved. Click Move.

Warning: After clicking Move, you won't be able to move back to the previous stage, so make sure you've selected the right opportunity type.

After clicking Move, the pop-up will close and the workflow will be consequently updated following the opportunity type you chose to apply. The ribbon displays the dates you last reached each stage.

Navigate up and down the workflow

To move further up or down through the stages of the workflow, simply select the stage on the ribbon and click Move on the confirmation pop-up that appears. You can skip one or several stages by clicking directly the stage you want to jump to.

When moving an opportunity to the next stage of the workflow, you can have some instructions displayed to make sure users have completed all the requirements to properly start the next stage.

Close an opportunity

Once the opportunity reaches the last stage of the workflow, the ribbon turns grey to show that the opportunity came to its conclusion.

The only possible status for this stage is logically Closed. If you realize that the opportunity needs additional work before being actually closed, you can return the opportunity to the Active status and therefore to the previous stage before the closing stage.

A few comments on the opportunity statuses

Active

Your opportunities are in the Active status when you and your team are currently evaluating them. By default, all newly created opportunities are set as Active. 

On-hold

You can use the On-Hold status when an opportunity is too early or lacks information to be properly considered.

When you put an opportunity on hold, you need to indicate a reason. You also have the option of setting a reminder date to know when to return to it. Then, click Confirm.

Declined

You can decline an opportunity when you have determined that it's not of interest to your company.

Once you set an opportunity status to Declined, a confirmation message will pop up. You need to indicate a reason and click Confirm.

Closed

An opportunity with a Closed status means you've reached a positive conclusion for this opportunity. This status is only available at the closing stage of the workflow and is set automatically when you reach this stage.

Manage workflow configurations

User role required: Manager with Business Admin rights

Go to the Administration page in Deal and open the Workflows tab. Select the workflow you want to modify to open the settings: workflow name, description, asset type, stages, etc.

Important: Don't forget to click Save after you modify the workflow settings, at the bottom of the page. The Save button is deactivated if no change is done.

Workflow name and description

The workflow name and description are displayed in the application when moving to the third stage, when you're asked to choose the opportunity type (i.e. workflow type).

You can rename the workflow at your convenience in the Opportunity type name field, and the workflow description in the Description field.

Workflow asset type(s)

You can select the asset types in the Asset types field.

A workflow template can be used for one asset type or several asset types at the same time.

By default, any opportunity with a Pharma asset, Technology Solution, or Consumer Health has the In-Licensing (defaultDealType) workflow enabled. The In-Licensing default workflow comes with 4 stages:

• Confidential Evaluation, with three default tasks:

  • Review confidential package,

  • Organize confidential evaluation,

  • Draft non-binding offer.

• Due Diligence, with four default tasks:

  • Assemble Due Diligence Team,

  • Share access to Virtual Data Room,

  • Organize Due Diligence,

  • Finalize Due Diligence Report.

• Negotiation, with two default tasks:

  • Agree on negotiation requirements,

  • Draft Agreement.

• Contracting, with only one default task:

  • Sign binding offer.

Workflow stages

Create stages

If a workflow requires additional stages, open the workflow settings and click Add stage.

Enter the Stage name (mandatory) and a description of the stage. You can also add default tasks that will appear when you reach this stage.

Edit stages and change their order

For each stage, you can edit their name, description and tasks.

To change the order of the stages, drag and drop each stage using the grip on the left of the stage name.

Create or delete a workflow

Please send a request to your Inpart CSM to perform those actions.

It's possible to delete full workflow templates or specific stages within a workflow template if they're not already used in existing opportunities in both cases. 

If the structure of the workflows used by your company changes over time (e.g. change of stage/status names, deletion of a stage, etc...):

• Existing opportunities aren't impacted: The workflows of all opportunities created before the changes will remain unchanged.
• Newly created opportunities are impacted: Only the newly created opportunities will use the updated version of the workflow.