The CRM follows your company’s sales relationships: accounts, contacts, activities, opportunities and quotes. This article explains how to install it, choose who uses it, understand its billing per CRM user, share out permissions between roles and set up what surrounds it: notifications, emails and workflows. It is intended for the administrators of your workspace and the people who manage the subscription.
Before you start #
- The app store opens with the “Dashboard — Application switcher” permission, Access level. Installing or uninstalling the CRM, and choosing who can use it, require “Module activation — Enable / disable” at the Execute level. The Assigned people tab requires “Module activation — View”. By default, these permissions are reserved for the Administrator role.
- CRM permissions are set in Settings › Manage Employees › Employee Roles. Viewing them requires “View the permissions matrix”; changing them requires “Edit permissions (V/H/E/I/D checkboxes)” at the Execute level.
- The CRM is a subscription option, billed per CRM user. During the trial, it may already be installed automatically along with the other modules; otherwise, it can be installed freely.
Installing the CRM #
The CRM is installed from the app store, like any module: click your avatar, then Applications, open the CRM card and click Install. The full procedure, and what happens when your subscription does not cover a module, are described in Installing modules and choosing who can use them.
On installation, Illizeo prepares the module:
- two roles, Sales representative and Sales manager, created with no members, with their default permissions and scopes; the Administrator role receives every CRM permission, and the Payroll Manager role those for commissions;
- the CRM lists (account types, industries, sources, loss reasons, activity types, contact roles, missions, organisation roles in a project), in four languages, and the types of link between organisations (member of, partner of…);
- a first pipeline, if the workspace has none, and the “Business set-up” follow-up pipeline, supplied inactive;
- the tax rates of your company’s country, and four quote templates, one per language, stored in Settings › Documents › Document Templates.
The CRM then appears in the main menu under CRM, and its settings under Settings › CRM. Each menu entry (Dashboard, Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Quotes, My activities, Commissions, Memberships and dues, Events, Duplicates, Validations, Portfolios, Import and export, Microsoft 365, CRM settings) only appears with its permission. With no CRM permission at all, the CRM entry does not exist.
Uninstalling the CRM removes it from everyone’s menu. The two roles are closed, with their members and permissions kept; your accounts, contacts, deals and quotes are not erased. Reinstalling reopens the roles as they were.
Choosing who uses the CRM #
Two settings decide who works in the CRM, and both matter:
- Access to the module. On installation, every active employee has access to it. To remove it from a person or a unit, open the CRM card in the store, Assigned people tab. A person whose access to the module is removed can no longer enter the CRM, even if their role gives them permissions.
- A role that carries CRM permissions. Give your sales staff the Sales representative role, their managers the Sales manager role, or a role you have built yourself (see Assigning a role to employees). Until the CRM is installed, the module’s two roles do not appear in the list of roles.
Billing per CRM user #
The CRM is not billed on the company’s headcount but on CRM users. In the store, its price reads “/ CRM user / month”.
Every active user account that holds at least one CRM permission on the date of the reading is counted, once only even with several roles. The following are not counted:
- a person whose access to the CRM is removed in Assigned people, even if they keep a CRM permission;
- a person who only holds Commissions permissions, such as the Payroll Manager role, which receives them to read and pass on the statements;
- a deactivated account, a closed employee space, an invitation not yet accepted, a hire still being prepared or a demo employee;
- anyone at all, as long as the CRM is not installed.
An employee on leave or still onboarding whose space is open is counted: they can sign in and use the CRM.
To follow the count, click your avatar, then My Subscription, Monthly usage tab. The CRM users block gives the number read, the period and the date of the reading. It states Billed at this quantity for the period., or why nothing is billed: during the trial, CRM users are counted but not billed; a CRM that is not subscribed is not billed either. If the number could not be read, nothing is billed on an estimated quantity.
For the subscription and invoices in general, see Invoices, payment, usage and workspace ownership.
Permissions and roles #
In the permissions matrix, the CRM has fourteen sections. Thirteen have four permissions each: View, Create, Edit, Delete (for example “CRM accounts — View”); Validations has only two, “Validations — View” and “Validations — Approve or decline”. For CRM permissions, the Access level is enough, except “Quotes — Edit”, which is needed at the Execute level to submit a quote for approval, send it, have it signed, accept it or decline it.
| Section (permissions) | Sales representative | Sales manager | Administrator |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM accounts, CRM contacts, CRM activities, Opportunities | All four | All four | All four |
| Quotes | All four, “Edit” at the Execute level | All four, “Edit” at the Execute level | All four |
| CRM product catalogue | None | None | All four |
| CRM dashboards and reports | None | View | All four |
| CRM import and export | None | None | All four |
| CRM settings | None | All four | All four |
| CRM contact data protection | None | None | All four |
| Commissions | View | View, Edit | All four |
| Memberships and dues, Events | None | None | All four |
| Validations | None | None | Both |
The Payroll Manager role also receives “Commissions — View” and “Commissions — Edit”, with the All scope, and no other CRM permission.
These values are a starting point: change them in the matrix as for any role (see Setting permissions in the matrix). A row you have already set is never overwritten by a reinstallation.
A permission says what a role can do; its scope says on which records: Mine (those the person owns), My team (theirs and those of their direct reports) or All. By default, the Sales representative has Mine and the Sales manager My team, but both read every account and every contact, so they can spot a duplicate before creating it. The Administrator has All. The scope is set per role, domain and operation in the CRM scopes card (see CRM settings).
Creating the project of a won deal also requires the Projects module permission at the Execute level (see From a won deal to a project).
Notifications, emails and workflows #
- Your notifications: in Personal Settings › Notifications, the CRM group has one row per family of notifications, including “CRM — accounts and contacts assigned, merges”, “CRM — activities: assigned tasks, reminders, overdue tasks”, “CRM — opportunities: assigned, signing date passed, no next step” and “CRM — quotes: to approve, approved or declined, signed, expiring soon”; the others cover imports, data protection, Microsoft 365, commissions, memberships, events and validations. Each row only appears to people who hold the permission for the domain concerned (see Choosing your notifications).
- Emails: their texts are customised in Settings › Manage Illizeo › Email, CRM category. The morning summary, which lists each person’s tasks for the day and overdue ones, is off by default.
- Workflows: in Settings › Manage Employees › Workflows, the CRM brings the triggers “Opportunity won”, “Opportunity lost”, “Opportunity stage change” and “Quote discount above the threshold”, as well as those for commissions, memberships, events and validations. Its workflows are all supplied inactive, among them the approval of quote discounts (see The catalogue and quotes) and the creation of a won deal’s project.
Good to know #
- The Administrator role holds every CRM permission: an administrator who has access to the module is therefore counted as a CRM user. If they do not use the CRM, remove the module from them in Assigned people.
- If you uninstall and then reinstall the CRM, every active employee gets access to the module again: individual removals made before are erased. Check the Assigned people tab after a reinstallation.
- The CRM interface exists in French, English, German and Italian. List values are entered in all four languages. The pipeline and stages created on installation are named in a single language: rename them if needed.
- Every account, contact and opportunity keeps its timeline: creation, changes, change of owner, merges, activities and quotes.
FAQ #
The CRM menu does not appear for an employee. #
Check in this order: the CRM is installed; the person has access to the module in Assigned people; one of their roles carries at least one CRM permission.
I do not sell, so why am I counted as a CRM user? #
Your role carries a CRM permission and you have access to the module. Remove the module from yourself in Assigned people, or remove the CRM permissions from the role if nobody should have them.
