Project Qualification with Project Lead

Investing Sales Rep time in every piece of project intelligence that comes in — whether from an external data provider, a web form, or a converted Salesforce Lead — isn’t a good use of anyone’s time. Project Lead (Bauobjekt_Lead__c) exists to hold that information in an unqualified state until someone decides it’s worth pursuing: the goal of every Project Lead is to reach a decision — convert it to a real Project (or Main Project), or disqualify it.

The three phases

1. Qualification — a rep (or an automated rule) assesses the lead against your business’s own criteria.
2. Conversion — a qualified lead is promoted to a Bauobjekt__c (Project) or a Hauptbauobjekt__c (Main Project).
3. Rejection — a lead that doesn’t meet criteria is marked Abgelehnt (rejected) by recording an Absage_Grund__c (rejection reason); doing so is itself what triggers the rejection, whatever else is on the record.

A Project Lead is always created in the Edit record type (a transient New type is swapped out immediately on insert) and moves to Convert once it’s either converted or rejected — after that point it’s a terminal record, not meant to be edited further as a lead.

Where to go next

• Use Cases for Project Lead — why it makes sense not to create a Project directly, and how the tactical components of Project Lead map onto your day-to-day business.
• Manage Project Leads — monitor and work your Project Leads, including Project Lead Home, the Lifecycle of Project Leads, and record-type behavior in Project Lead Record Types.
• Integrate Project Lead with Salesforce Lead Process — Project Lead is fully compatible with the standard Salesforce Lead object; a converted Lead can automatically create a Project Lead and link the resulting Contact as a Participant.
• Set Up Project Lead — Project Lead is fully customisable: which fields appear, which values trigger conversion or rejection, and how field mapping to the resulting Project works.

Converting a Project Lead

Conversion is triggered simply by setting the Bauobjekt__c lookup (linking to a Project) or Main_project_conversion__c (linking to a Main Project) — there’s no separate “convert” flag to remember. In the guided Convert flow:

1. Duplicate check — a map shows the current Project Lead (green marker) against existing Projects (blue markers). No match → continue. A match → select it to merge into instead of creating a new Project.
2. Project name — defaults to the Project Lead’s name; can be changed.
3. Participants — choose which Participants transfer to the new Project. If a toggle for full activity transfer is active, Tasks, Events, and Recommendations transfer too; otherwise they stay linked via the Project Lead’s own Project field rather than being copied.

If the Convert button is missing, the lead has usually already been converted (check whether its Project field is populated) — if not, that’s a question for your admin, since a lead can also be marked non-convertible by a custom business rule.

Any error encountered during conversion is written to the lead’s Error__c field — worth adding to the page layout if your team converts leads often, since it isn’t there by default.

Related

• Use Cases for Integration of Project Lead to Salesforce Lead
• Manage Project Leads
• Integrate Project Lead with Salesforce Lead Process
• Set Up Project Lead
• Set Up Project Lead for Salesforce Lead Process
• Things to know about Project Lead
• Project Lead Fields