Create a Pipeline
A pipeline is how you model a workflow in Slate. Whether you are tracking deals, support tickets, or hiring candidates, this guide covers every setting available, from the basics to advanced features like lead scoring and duplicate detection.
Step 1: Create the pipeline
Go to your company Dashboard and click "Create Pipeline".
Name and sort order
| Name | Enter a descriptive name such as "Enterprise Sales", "Support Tickets", or "Recruitment" |
| Sort order | Controls the order of pipeline tabs on your dashboard. Lower numbers appear first |
Templates or blank pipeline
You can start with a blank pipeline and configure everything yourself, or select a template to get preconfigured stages, statuses, and fields that you can customize later:
| Sales | B2B or B2C deal tracking with stages like Lead, Qualified, Proposal, Negotiation, Won, and Lost |
| Recruitment | Hiring workflows from Applied through Screening, Interview, Assessment, Offer, and Hired |
| Real Estate | Property sales with New Lead, Viewing Scheduled, Under Offer, Sold, and Lost |
| Support | Customer support tickets moving through New, In Progress, Waiting, and Resolved |
| Software | Software and SaaS sales cycles |
| Solar | Renewable energy project sales |
| Shop | Retail and e-commerce operations |
| Bakery | Bakery order and production tracking |
Templates also include suggested fields. For example, the Sales template adds a currency field for deal value, a dropdown for lead source, and a date field for expected close.
Step 2: Configure stages
Stages are the columns on your Kanban board. As items move through your process, they move across stages from left to right.
Adding a stage
Click "Add Stage" and configure:
| Name | Use process oriented labels like "Qualified", "Under Review", or "Awaiting Approval" |
| Sort order | Determines column position. Lower numbers sit further left |
| Icon (optional) | A visual identifier displayed alongside the stage name. Recommended for a cleaner UI |
| Display type | How statuses within this stage appear, either as a count (number badge) or as icons. This is set when you create the first status in the stage |
Designing your stage structure
Stages should represent decision points in your process, not individual tasks:
Lead → Discovery → Proposal → Negotiation → Contract → Closed
New → Triaged → In Progress → Waiting on Customer → Resolved
Applied → Phone Screen → Technical Interview → Final Round → Offer → Hired
The number of stages depends on your workflow and how your teams are organized. Since stage level permissions allow you to control which teams see which stages, you can structure your pipeline to match your access requirements.
You can reorder stages at any time by changing their sort order. Existing items stay in their current stage when you do.
Step 3: Configure statuses
Statuses are optional substeps within a stage that help you track exactly where an item stands. For example, a "Proposal" stage might have statuses like "Draft", "Sent", and "Reviewed".
Adding a status
Within a stage, click "Add Status" and configure:
| Name | A short label for the sub-step |
| Sort order | Position within the stage |
| Icon | Required when the display type is set to icon. Otherwise optional but recommended for a cleaner UI |
| Display type | Either count or icon. The first status you create in a stage sets the display type, and all subsequent statuses in that stage follow the same type |
Example status setups
| Sales → Proposal stage | Draft, Sent, Reviewed, Revised |
| Support → In Progress stage | Investigating, Waiting on Customer, Escalated |
| Recruitment → Interview stage | Scheduled, Completed, Feedback Pending |
For reporting, you can mark specific statuses as Won or Lost in the reporting configuration below. This powers win/loss rates and revenue reports without changing how statuses work day-to-day.
Step 4: Define your blueprint
A blueprint is a collection of fields that defines what data you capture per item. Before you can add items to your pipeline, you need to create at least one blueprint. This is the form your team fills out when creating or updating an item.
Blueprint basics
| Blueprint | A named set of fields that customizes your item forms. A blueprint is required before you can add items to the pipeline |
| Versioning | Each time you change a blueprint, a new version is created. Previous versions are preserved, so your historical data stays consistent |
| Multiple blueprints | You can create more than one blueprint per pipeline, useful when you track different item types (e.g., "Individual" and "Corporate" in a sales pipeline) |
Open "Manage Blueprints" from your pipeline settings to create, edit, or delete blueprints.
Built-in fields
Every blueprint includes built in fields. Name and Contact Type are always present, while Email and Phone Number can be toggled on or off:
| Name | Item name or title. Always enabled |
| Contact Type | Whether the item represents a person, company, or neither. Always enabled |
| Email (optional) | Contact email with format validation |
| Phone Number (optional) | Contact phone number |
Each item also receives an automatically generated Short ID for easy reference. This is assigned automatically and cannot be edited.
Field categories
Fields are organized into five categories. Each category has distinct types, and some types offer multiple display variants. For example, a single select field can appear as a dropdown, radio buttons, cards, inline buttons, or a listbox.
Input fields
| File Upload | Single or multiple file upload with configurable file types and size limits |
| Text Input | Short text with format validation |
| Decimal Number | Numeric input with decimal precision |
| Integer Number | Whole numbers only |
| Currency | Monetary value with currency code, symbol, and formatting |
| URL | Validated URL input |
| Validated email address | |
| Phone Number | Standard phone number |
| International Phone | Phone with country code selector |
| Custom Format | Text input with a custom validation pattern |
| Multi-line Text | Textarea for longer content |
| Validated Text Area | Textarea with format validation |
Additional categories include Radio (single select), Select (multi select), Checkbox (multi select toggle), and Date/Time fields, each with multiple display variants. You can explore all available types and variants in the field builder when adding a field to your blueprint.
Field configuration
Every field supports these settings:
Core properties
| Label | The name shown to users (e.g., "Deal Value", "Company Size") |
| Name | A unique identifier within the blueprint |
| Description (optional) | Help text displayed below the field |
| Required | When on, the item cannot be saved without filling this field |
| Default value (optional) | Pre-filled value when creating a new item |
Stage assignment
| Specific stage | Field only appears in one stage |
| Multiple stages | Field appears in the stages you pick |
| All stages | Field appears everywhere in the pipeline |
This controls where the field shows up. For example, a "Rejection Reason" field might only appear in the final stage.
Display options
| Display order | Where the field sits relative to others. Lower numbers appear first |
| Show on hover | Displays the field value when hovering over an item on the board |
| Show in detail view | Displays the field when clicking on an item to view its details |
| Read-only after stage | Locks the field once the item moves past a certain stage (e.g., lock "Deal Value" after "Contract") |
Validation rules
| Min / Max value | Restrict the numeric range (number and currency fields) |
| Min / Max length | Restrict character count (text fields) |
| Pattern | Custom format validation using regex (text fields) |
| Integer only | Reject decimal values (number fields) |
| Positive only | Reject negative values (number fields) |
Currency specific settings
| Currency code | Standard code like EUR, USD, GBP, or INR |
| Currency symbol | Display symbol (€, $, £, etc.) |
| Symbol position | Before the value, after, or both |
| Decimal precision | Number of decimal places |
| Allow negative | Whether negative amounts are permitted |
| Allowed currencies | Restrict which currencies are available |
File upload settings
| Multiple files | Allow uploading more than one file |
| Accepted types | Restrict to specific file types (e.g., images, PDFs, documents) |
| Max file size | Size limit per file |
| Max file count | Maximum number of files when multiple uploads are enabled |
Option configuration (Radio, Select, Checkbox)
For fields with predefined choices, each option supports:
| Label | The display text |
| Sublabel (optional) | Secondary descriptive text |
| Description (optional) | Additional detail shown below the option |
| Icon (optional) | A visual identifier from the icon library. Recommended for options with icons enabled |
| Default (optional) | Pre-selected state when the form loads |
Card indicators
Card indicators add visual markers to items on the Kanban board based on field values.
| Enabled | Toggle indicators on or off |
| Position | Show on the left side of the item card, either at the top (alongside the item name) or at the bottom |
| Mappings | For text fields: map values to icons using exact match, contains, or pattern matching |
For select and radio fields, card indicators use the field options' icons directly.
Card background color
You can also bind a field to control the background color of item cards on the board. When enabled, each item card is color coded based on the field's value.
| Enabled | Toggle card color binding on or off |
| Color mappings | For option based fields (radio, select, checkbox), assign a color to each option. For text fields, map values to colors using match rules |
This is useful for visually distinguishing items at a glance, such as color coding by priority, status, or category.
Step 5: Pipeline settings
Once your pipeline is set up, you can fine-tune a few additional options.
Self-assignment
| Self-assign | Allows users to assign themselves to items without needing an admin to do it for them |
Default contact type
| Default contact type | Whether new items default to a "person" or "company" contact type |
Email conversations
| Conversations enabled | Turns items into email threads. Your team can send and receive emails directly from the item detail view, with a shared inbox for the whole pipeline |
This requires an email domain to be set up. Messages can be public (customer-facing) or internal (team-only). See Conversations & Inbox for more.
Step 6: Reporting configuration
Connect your pipeline to the reporting engine so revenue, win/loss, and funnel reports reflect accurate data.
Revenue field
| Revenue field | Pick which currency field represents the monetary value of your items (e.g., "Deal Value") |
| Multiple blueprints | If you have more than one blueprint, you can map a revenue field for each |
Won and lost designations
You can mark stages, statuses, or a combination of both as won or lost. This is flexible since statuses are optional.
| Won | Which stages or statuses count as a successful outcome. Used for win rate and revenue reports |
| Lost | Which stages or statuses count as an unsuccessful outcome. Used for loss rate and churn analysis |
A stage or status cannot be both won and lost. These designations power the Reports and Analytics dashboards.
Step 7: Duplicate detection
Catch duplicate records before they are created.
Configuration
| Enabled | Turn duplicate detection on or off |
| Match fields | Which fields to compare, such as email, phone, name, or any custom text field |
| Match mode | Match if any selected field matches, or only when all of them match |
| Scope | Check within this pipeline only, or across every pipeline in the company |
| On duplicate | What should happen when a match is found |
On duplicate behavior
| Warn | The item is still created, but a warning with the matched records is displayed. On manual creation, a dialog allows you to view the match, create anyway, or cancel |
| Skip | The item is not created. The existing match is returned instead |
| Update | The existing item is updated with the incoming data |
This works the same way everywhere: manual creation, CSV imports, inbound webhooks, and inbound emails. See Duplicate Detection for more.
Step 8: Lead scoring
Score items automatically based on field values so your team can focus on the highest-potential leads.
Enable scoring
Toggle Lead Scoring on in your pipeline settings and set a max score to cap the total.
Scoring rules
Each rule evaluates a field value and adds or subtracts points:
| Field | Any built in field (email, phone, name, stage, status, source) or custom field |
| Operator | Equals, not equals, contains, not contains, greater than, less than, is empty, is not empty |
| Value | The value to compare against |
| Points | How many points to add or subtract when the rule matches |
Example rules for an enterprise sales pipeline:
- "Deal Value" greater than 50,000 → +25 points
- "Source" equals "Referral" → +15 points
- "Company Size" equals "Enterprise" → +20 points
- "Email" is empty → -10 points
- "Stage" equals "Negotiation" → +10 points
Scores update automatically whenever items are created or modified.
Score decay
You can enable score decay to gradually reduce scores on items that have not been updated:
| Decay enabled | Toggle decay on or off |
| Interval | How often points are deducted (e.g., every 7 days) |
| Points per interval | How many points are subtracted each time |
Card colors
You can color code item cards on the board based on their score. Define thresholds like green for high scores, yellow for medium, and red for low, so the most promising leads stand out at a glance.
Thresholds are fully configurable. After changing rules, click "Recompute Scores" to recalculate all items.
See Lead Scoring for more.
Step 9: Start adding items
Return to your dashboard, select the pipeline, and click "Add Item". Fill in the fields from your blueprint and save. Your first card appears on the Kanban board.
What to configure next
With your pipeline up and running, here are some natural next steps:
- Add custom fields to extend your blueprint as your process evolves
- Invite team members and set roles and team permissions
- Configure an automation to trigger actions on stage changes, field updates, or schedules
- Capture leads via web form by embedding a form on your site
- Connect a webhook to receive items from tools like Zapier, Make, or n8n
- Import from CSV to bring in existing data in bulk