When Should I Complete, Cancel or Delete a Project?

Keeping a Project Open

We suggest you cancel or complete projects once they are no longer active to keep your forecast and reports clean. In addition, the Project Status Pipeline on your dashboard pulls this information in each time you load the system, and if it is not up to date can cause unwanted clutter and take a lot longer to load. You can determine a best practice for your team based on your customer life cycle.

Complete or Cancel Projects

Project owners and managers can complete or cancel a project on the Project Overview page. Either of these actions moves the project out of the pipeline and can be undone or have the date edited later if needed.

• Project Complete can be found in the lower right corner of the project's Overview tab.
• Project Complete will save all project data and record it within Metrics.
• Cancel Project will remove the project from your metrics.
• A completed project will move to the Recently Completed Projects status within the Project Status tab.

Project Remaining Open should be used in the following situations:

• The project is active and remains a winnable opportunity.
• You have sent out a bid and are still engaging with the customer.
• The project is not considered a lost opportunity by your company due to the time lapse (age of the bid) or other reasons provided by the customer to deem the project lost. 
• NOTE: Any bids linked to the completed project can still be accepted by your customer. If this happens, you can select the "undo project complete" button or create a new bid with updated services, pricing, or contract language. However, any bids linked to the canceled project will no longer be able to be accepted by your customer. 

"Cancel Project" should be used in the following situations:

• You went to the evaluation, but no work was needed; it was not a fit for your company or another reason that no bid was created.
• The customer has been non-responsive to scheduling an evaluation.
• Any bids linked to the canceled project will no longer be able to be accepted by your customer. 

"Project Complete" should be used in the following situations:

• You have finished the job.
• You have sent out a bid but did not win the job.
• You have sent out a bid, and the customer has been non-responsive or put the project on hold for a significant amount of time.
• Any bids linked to the completed project can still be accepted by your customer. If this happens, you can select the "undo project complete" button or create a new bid with updated services, pricing, or contract language.

What if I have a backlog of past projects that I need to complete?

We can help by completing a 1-time bulk update for your projects. Please email support@contractoraccelerator.com with the parameters of the items you would like us to complete. 

Sample parameters might include: 

• Project Created (sales appointment needed): Cancel all projects that did not have a sales appointment scheduled six months after the customer was added.
• Sales Appointment Completed (bid needed): Cancel projects that did not have a bid created 6 months after the sales appointment.
• Bid Sent (waiting for customer approval): Complete any project with a bid created more than 3 months ago or request a report to identify each project one by one. 
• Installation scheduled (mark complete after installation): Complete all projects that had an installation beyond a 1 year ago, and you review the rest to ensure all payments have been received. 

Deleting Projects

There are a couple of reasons you might need to delete a project. Canceling a project prevents it from showing up in reports but keeps it in your records, so it is rare to need to delete it from the system fully. The most common use case for this is to remove duplications. 

How to Delete a Project:

To delete a project, primary users can delete projects by following these steps:

1. Cancel Pending Appointments and Bids: Before you can delete a project, make sure you cancel any pending appointments and any accepted or finalized bids associated with it.

2. Navigate to the Projects Table:

   • Click CRM in the top navigation.
   • Click Projects to access the table of all your projects.

3. Find the Project to Delete:

   • Use the search bar or sort the columns as needed to locate the project.

4. Delete the Project:

   • Click the three-dot menu to the right of the project you want to delete.
   • Select Delete from the menu.
   • A confirmation will appear, reminding you to cancel any outstanding bids and appointments.

5. Final Confirmation:

   • If no active events are tied to the project, clicking Save will return you to the projects table, and your deletion will be complete.
   • If you receive a warning about active events, revisit the project to cancel any remaining pending items.