> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.leaf360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Pipeline Stages

> Where loan pipeline stages and sales pipelines are configured in Leaf360 Mortgage CRM, who can edit them, and what happens to records already sitting in a stage you rename or remove.

Stages are the columns your pipelines are built from, and nearly every other screen uses them. The sidebar's Loans rows, the board columns on [Loans](/mortgage-crm/loans), the stage picker on a loan record, and the focus bar and stage dropdown in an [SLA](/mortgage-crm/sla-management) rule all come from this same setup.

Loans and leads are set up in two different places.

| What you want to change                            | Where it lives                                                                 |
| -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Loan pipeline stages and the statuses inside them  | **Settings**, then **Loan Pipeline** under the **Loans** group                 |
| Sales pipelines, their stages and their focus bars | The **Manage Pipelines** button on [Sales Pipeline](/mortgage-crm/sales-leads) |

## Loan Pipeline

Open **Settings** at the bottom of the sidebar and pick **Loan Pipeline** under **Loans**. The card is titled **Loan Pipeline**, and its subtitle explains it plainly: **Configure the stages that loans flow through in your pipeline. Admins only.**

<Note>
  **Loan Pipeline** only shows up in the Settings menu for administrators. So do **Loan Statuses** and **Checklist Templates** beside it. If the row isn't there, your role doesn't have it.
</Note>

### How a stage is put together

Each stage is a row you can expand or collapse. Collapsed, it shows a color dot, its icon, its name, a pencil icon to rename it, a count of **statuses** and a count of **stage buckets**, and a trash icon if the stage isn't a Leaf360 default.

Expand it and you'll see:

* **Route**, the web address the stage lives at. This is what the sidebar row and the pipeline dropdown point to.
* **Icon**, chosen from a fixed list.
* **Color**, chosen from a row of swatches.
* **Stage Buckets**, with a count. A bucket is a sub-group inside the stage. Each bucket holds a set of your company's loan statuses, checked on from the active statuses defined under **Loan Statuses**.

A loan doesn't carry a stage of its own — it carries a status. This setup is the map that turns statuses into stages. That's the whole point of the screen, and it's why the counts on your pipeline can shift even when no loan has actually changed.

### Editing

<Steps>
  <Step title="Rename a stage">
    Click the pencil beside the name, or the name itself, then type your new name and press Enter. Press Escape to cancel.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Reorder">
    Drag a stage row by its grip handle — a blue line shows where it'll land. Buckets inside a stage reorder the same way, and also have up and down arrows.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add a stage">
    **Add Stage** adds a row called **New Stage** at the end, already expanded and empty — no statuses, no buckets. Rename it and fill it in.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add or remove statuses and buckets">
    Type a name into a bucket's input to add one, check the statuses that belong in it, and use the trash icons to remove. Leaf360 blocks a duplicate name with **Status already exists** or **Stage bucket already exists**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save">
    Nothing is saved until you press **Save Changes**. The button stays grayed out until you've actually changed something, and confirms with **Pipeline configuration saved**.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Warning>
  Every edit on this screen stays in your browser until you press **Save Changes**. Leaving the section or reloading the page discards everything without asking. The **Reset** button that appears next to Save while you have unsaved edits does the same thing on purpose — it reloads the saved setup and throws your changes away.
</Warning>

### Renaming changes the address

Renaming a stage you created also regenerates its **Route** to match the new name. A bookmark to the old address, or a link someone saved, will stop working. Default stages keep the same address even when renamed.

### What can and cannot be removed

Stages that Leaf360 ships with are marked as defaults. They have no trash icon, and trying to remove one gets refused with **Cannot remove a default pipeline stage**. Only stages your company added can be removed.

<Warning>
  Removing a stage removes the column and the mapping behind it — it doesn't change the loans themselves. Leaf360 won't tell you what happens to loans whose status was only mapped through the stage you removed, and it won't warn you or count the affected loans first. Before removing a stage that has loans behind it, move those loans to a status another stage still covers, or check with your Leaf360 representative. **All Loans** lists every loan regardless of stage, so it's the safest place to check what you're about to strand.
</Warning>

### Starting over

**Reset to Defaults** replaces your stages and stage buckets with the current Leaf360 defaults. The dialog is titled **Reset loan pipeline defaults?** and states plainly that **Loan records are not deleted or changed**. It takes effect immediately — there's no second Save step.

## Manage Pipelines, for sales

Sales pipelines are set up from the pipeline itself rather than from Settings. On [Sales Pipeline](/mortgage-crm/sales-leads), the sliders icon in the header — labeled **Manage Pipelines** — opens a panel titled **Pipeline Management**. **Create New Pipeline** in the pipeline name dropdown opens the same panel, ready to build a new one.

The list shows each pipeline with its stage count, its focus bar count, and a **Company** or **Personal** tag. **Add Pipeline** at the bottom takes a name and creates one.

Open a pipeline and you'll see:

* **Pipeline Details**, with **Pipeline Name** and **Description**.
* **Appearance & Visibility**, with a color palette and an icon picker.
* **Visibility**, a **Company** or **Personal** switch. This is administrators only — a pipeline you create without an administrator role is always Personal.
* **Pipeline Stages & Filters**, where you add and name stages, give each an icon and color, reorder them with the up and down arrows that appear on hover, and remove them.
* **Add Focus Bar** under a stage, which creates the saved view that appears as a focus button on the pipeline. Each focus bar has a name, an icon, and a set of filter conditions you build right there.

Nothing in this panel is saved until you press **Save Pipeline**. Closing the panel without saving loses everything, with no warning.

<Warning>
  Deleting a stage or a focus bar in this panel takes effect the moment you click it — no confirmation, no undo — and gets saved for good once you press **Save Pipeline**. Deleting the whole pipeline does ask first, in a dialog titled **Delete Pipeline?**, warning that the stages and focus bars go with it.
</Warning>

Two things are protected. The default pipeline has no delete option at all. And **Reset to Defaults** only shows up if you have the standing to use it, so a non-administrator can't reset a company pipeline. Its dialog says **Custom statuses are not deleted.**

<Note>
  Renaming a sales stage or a focus bar also regenerates its address, just like loan stages. As with loans, the screen won't tell you what happens to leads already sitting behind the old name.
</Note>

## Common problems

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Loan Pipeline is not in my Settings menu">
    It's administrators only. So are Loan Statuses and Checklist Templates.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="I edited the stages and nothing changed on the pipeline">
    Press **Save Changes**. Until you do, your edits only exist in your browser. Once saved, the loan pipelines pick up the new setup without needing a reload.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A status is not offered when I try to move a loan">
    Statuses come from **Loan Statuses** in Settings, and only the active ones show up here. Add or reactivate it there first, then check it into the bucket you want.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The sidebar still shows a stage I removed">
    The sidebar builds its Loans rows from the saved setup. Save your changes, then reload if the row is still there.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A bookmark to a pipeline stage stopped working">
    Renaming a stage you created regenerates its address. Open the stage in Settings and check the **Route** line for the current one.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Related

* [Loans](/mortgage-crm/loans)
* [Sales Pipeline](/mortgage-crm/sales-leads)
* [SLA Management](/mortgage-crm/sla-management)
* [Organization Settings](/mortgage-crm/organization-settings)
* [Leaf360 Mortgage CRM](/mortgage-crm/overview)