Master the Kantivo CRM — from contacts and deals to pipeline management, templates, and permissions. Interactive lessons for every role.
The Kantivo CRM is a full-featured customer relationship management system built directly into the Kantivo Platform. It helps you manage your entire sales process — from first contact to closed deal.
Each role has different capabilities. Throughout this training, you'll see role badges showing which features apply to each user type.
Full contact database with 20+ fields, tags, and custom data
Visual kanban board with customizable stages
Track calls, emails, meetings, and notes
Reusable email, SMS, and note templates
Granular visibility with commit-up model
Pipeline stats, win rates, and deal tracking
| Feature | Starter | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM Core | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Contacts | 500 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Deals | 50 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Import / Export | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom Fields | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
Every organization has its own isolated CRM. Data never crosses organization boundaries. Partners and sales reps work within their organization's CRM but with controlled visibility.
The CRM is accessible from both the Admin Portal and the Partner Portal. Here's what the interface looks like:
Your contact database. Search, filter, create, edit, and manage all your contacts. View activity history and link contacts to platform customers.
Your sales pipeline. See deals in a kanban board view or list view. Create deals, move them through stages, and track win/loss outcomes.
Reusable message templates with variable substitution. Create templates for emails, SMS messages, and internal notes.
Configure CRM permissions, visibility rules, contact limits, and commit-up policies. Admin-only access.
Contacts are the foundation of your CRM. Every prospect, lead, customer, and vendor lives here.
Each contact includes a rich set of fields:
First name, last name, email, phone
Company, job title, website
Street, city, state, postal code, country
Type, status, source, tags, custom fields
Contacts also support Vendor and Other types for flexible classification.
From the Contacts tab, click the Add Contact button in the top-right.
Enter first name, last name, and email (minimum). Add company, phone, job title, and address as needed.
Choose the contact type (Lead, Prospect, Customer, Vendor, Other) and status (Active, Inactive, Do Not Contact).
Add descriptive tags for easy filtering later (e.g., "Enterprise", "Referral", "Trade Show").
Choose who can see this contact: Individual (private), Partner (your team), or Organization (everyone).
The CRM offers powerful search across multiple fields:
You can link a CRM contact to a platform customer record. This connects your sales pipeline to your billing system — click the "Link Customer" button on any contact.
What is the minimum information required to create a contact?
Every interaction with a contact is tracked in the activity timeline. This gives you a complete history of your relationship.
Internal notes about the contact or conversation
Log emails sent or received
Record phone calls with notes
Log meetings and outcomes
The CRM also automatically logs system events:
Activities are immutable — once logged, they cannot be edited or deleted. This creates a reliable audit trail. Every activity records who performed it, when, and from what role (admin, partner, or sales rep).
Click on any contact to open their detail view.
Below the contact details, you'll see the activity section with recent activities and an "Add Activity" button.
Select Note, Email, Call, or Meeting from the dropdown.
Add the details of the interaction. Be specific — your future self will thank you.
Don't wait until end-of-day to log your calls and meetings. Log them right after they happen while details are fresh. This keeps your pipeline data accurate and helps your team stay informed.
The Kantivo CRM uses a unique commit-up visibility model. This controls who can see each contact and deal, giving teams privacy while maintaining organizational oversight.
Visible to all org users — committed to the company
Visible to the partner and their sales reps
Private — only the contact owner can see it
Contacts start at the lowest level and can be committed upward — but never back down:
⚠ Important: Committing up is permanent. Once a contact moves from Individual to Partner level (or Partner to Organization), it cannot be moved back down. This protects data integrity.
| Action | Org Admin | Partner | Sales Rep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create contacts | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Read contacts | ✓ All | ✓ Own + Partner | ✓ Own |
| Update contacts | ✓ All | ✓ Own | ✗ No |
| Delete contacts | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Commit up | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ⚙ Configurable |
| CRM settings | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
Organization owners and admins always have override access. Even if a contact is set to "Individual" visibility, the org admin can still see it. This ensures compliance and prevents data loss when team members leave.
A sales rep creates a contact at "Individual" visibility. Who can see it?
Deals represent sales opportunities in your pipeline. Each deal is linked to a contact and moves through stages toward a win or loss.
The pipeline displays your deals in a kanban board — a visual layout where each column represents a stage:
Switch to the Deals tab in the CRM section.
Click the Add Deal button to open the creation form.
Enter the deal title, amount, probability, expected close date, and select the linked contact.
Select which pipeline stage this deal starts in (usually "Lead").
As deals progress, move them to the next stage. You can do this by:
Every stage move is tracked as an activity in the deal's timeline, including who moved it and when.
When a deal reaches its final outcome:
The CRM automatically calculates your win rate (won deals / total closed deals), average deal size, and total pipeline value. Check the stats section on the Deals tab for these insights.
What happens when you move a deal from "Qualified" to "Proposal" stage?
Every organization gets default pipeline stages, but you can fully customize them to match your sales process.
There is also a default Lost stage for deals that don't close.
Add stages like "Demo Scheduled", "Contract Sent", or "Pending Approval" to match your process.
Change stage names to fit your industry terminology.
Use the reorder function to rearrange stages in your pipeline flow.
Remove stages you don't need. Note: You cannot delete a stage that has active deals — move the deals first.
⚠ Important: Stages are soft-deleted (marked inactive). This preserves historical data — if a deal was once in a deleted stage, the history is maintained.
Templates save you time by letting you create reusable messages with dynamic variables that auto-populate with contact and deal data.
Subject line + body for outreach, follow-ups, proposals
Short messages for quick touchpoints and reminders
Internal templates for standardized call notes, meeting summaries
Use double curly braces to insert dynamic data:
Subject: Great speaking with you, {{first_name}}!
Hi {{first_name}},
It was great connecting with you today about the {{deal_title}} opportunity.
As discussed, the {{deal_stage}} stage involves reviewing the {{deal_amount}} proposal with your team at {{company_name}}.
Looking forward to our next steps!
Best regards
| Variable | Source | Example Output |
|---|---|---|
{{first_name}} | Contact | Sarah |
{{last_name}} | Contact | Mitchell |
{{full_name}} | Contact | Sarah Mitchell |
{{email}} | Contact | sarah@acme.com |
{{phone}} | Contact | (555) 234-5678 |
{{company_name}} | Contact | Acme Corporation |
{{job_title}} | Contact | VP of Operations |
{{deal_title}} | Deal | Enterprise Platform |
{{deal_amount}} | Deal | $120,000 |
{{deal_stage}} | Deal | Negotiation |
Before using a template, you can preview it with actual contact/deal data. The preview endpoint substitutes all variables with real values so you can see exactly what the recipient will receive.
Templates can be set to organization visibility (shared with everyone) or individual visibility (private to you). Use organization templates for standardized messaging and individual templates for personal outreach styles.
What syntax do you use to insert a contact's first name into a template?
Select multiple contacts and update them all at once. You can bulk-change:
Export your contacts to a CSV file for use in spreadsheets, other CRMs, or marketing platforms. The export respects your current filters — so you can export a targeted subset of contacts.
Filter by status, type, or visibility to narrow your export.
Click the Export button to download a CSV file with all matching contacts.
⚠ Plan Requirement: Import and Export features are only available on Growth and Scale plans. Starter plan users will see these options disabled.
Which plan tiers support contact import and export?
The CRM dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of your contacts:
Stats include breakdowns by stage so you can see where deals are concentrated and identify bottlenecks.
Review your pipeline weekly. Close or remove stale deals that haven't moved in 30+ days. A cluttered pipeline gives inaccurate forecasts.
Agree on a standard set of tags across your organization. Tags like "Enterprise", "SMB", "Referral", "Cold Outreach" help with filtering and reporting.
Every call, email, and meeting should be logged as an activity. This creates a complete history that helps when contacts change hands between team members.
Create organization-level templates for common outreach. This ensures consistent messaging and saves time for your team.
Don't hoard contacts at the individual level. Once a lead is qualified, commit it to partner or organization level so others can help move it forward.
Always add a lost reason when marking a deal as lost. Over time, patterns emerge — price, timing, competition — that help you adjust your strategy.
Which of these is NOT a default pipeline stage in the Kantivo CRM?