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CRM on M‑Files

Open a customer and everything is there

A customer rings about their proposal. The proposal is in one system, the signed contract in another and the emails in a colleague's inbox. On M‑Files, customers and opportunities sit in the same vault as their documents, so the whole customer opens in one place. Keep your CRM and connect it, or run sales on M‑Files alone.

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Three screens of a CRM built on M-Files: a dashboard of customers and sales opportunities with charts, the sales pipeline as a board with a column for each stage, and the same pipeline as a list
Connect your CRM

Keep your CRM, connect the documents

Most companies already have a CRM, and the sales team should not have to leave it. M‑Files keeps lists such as customers and contacts in sync with an external database, so a proposal, a contract or an email is filed under the same customer your CRM knows, and the CRM stays in charge of the pipeline.

One customer list

Customers and contacts are kept in sync from your CRM, so a customer is created once, spelled one way, and found under the same name in both systems.

Documents under the CRM's customer

The proposal, the signed contract and the emails appear under that customer in M‑Files, as one copy each, with the version history and the approvals behind them.

Emails filed from Outlook

Emails are filed from Outlook with their metadata, and M‑Files can pick up the customer or the contact from the email.

Set up as part of the project

We define the metadata, objects and workflows with you and integrate M‑Files with your CRM or ERP where you need it. Which CRM you run is something we look at when we scope the project.

Without a separate CRM

When M‑Files alone is enough

A small sales team whose work is mostly documents does not always need a CRM beside M‑Files. Customers, contacts and opportunities are objects in the vault, and a workflow carries each opportunity from lead to closed.

  • A pipeline as a workflow — An opportunity moves through Lead, Qualified and Closed as won or lost. Each state can notify a role, create a task and change who has access, which is how the wider team sees a lead once it is qualified.
  • Proposals from a template — A proposal written from your Word template has the customer's name and the contact filled in from the opportunity, and it is filed under the customer as you save.
  • Grow into dashboards later — Views per person come with M‑Files. When the team wants a board, a sales dashboard or sortable tables, CtrlPortals from our development partner CtrlDocs adds them on the same data.
A customer's portal in M-Files, built with CtrlPortals: the customer's details, a chart of closed opportunities per month and the comment thread beside it
From lead to closed

Sales people see a lead once it is qualified

An opportunity moves through these steps in M‑Files.

  1. Lead

    Every new opportunity starts here.

  2. Qualified

    Sales people who should not be disturbed by every incoming lead get access at this point.

  3. Closed as won or closed as lost

    Either way, the opportunity stays in the vault with its documents.

For the sales team

Every document sits under its customer

The customer with everything under it

Proposals, contracts and other documents are linked to the customer, the contact or the opportunity and appear underneath it. Emails filed from Outlook land there too.

Your own pipeline

Views are set up for the whole sales team or by each sales person, for example the open opportunities you own yourself.

Access that follows the deal

Where an opportunity stands decides who can see it. The wider sales team gets access once a lead is qualified.

One name per customer

Customers can come from your ERP through an integration, so one customer has one name in both systems.

See a customer with its documents underneath

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With CtrlPortals

The whole pipeline on one screen

CtrlPortals, from our development partner CtrlDocs, adds dashboards and portals to M‑Files. For sales that means a table of customers and opportunities to search and sort, forms to edit them in and a sales dashboard, all on live data from the vault.

  • Sortable lists — Any M‑Files view becomes a table with a search pane, which you can sort and export to Excel.
  • Charts — Charts from M‑Files or SQL Server data, such as opportunities by workflow state.
  • Comments — Comment on a customer or a deal and mention a colleague, who is notified.
CtrlPortals on ctrldocs.com
A CtrlPortals list of sales opportunities grouped by stage, from Lead to Won, with owner, value and expected close date for each, the total value in the footer and a legend of four sales people below
The pipeline as a list, grouped by stage, with every deal's owner and value and the total at the bottom.
The board

See what is in negotiation right now

The board shows the opportunities with a column for each stage, and each column adds up its value. Moving a deal to the next stage changes its state in M‑Files, under the workflow's own rules.

  • Colour by sales person — Every card carries its owner's colour, with a legend under the board.
  • Filter to one person — A filter on owner, customer or stage applies to the board, the list and the calendar alike.
A sales board with a column each for the stages Lead, Qualified and Proposal, a card per opportunity showing its owner and value, and the sum of values at the foot of each column
Next step

Follow one deal from lead to closed

In a demo we open a customer with its documents, take an opportunity through the workflow and show the sales views. Tell us where your customer documents are today, and we answer the same working day.

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Questions

Questions about running sales in M‑Files

How does an opportunity move from step to step?
Through a workflow in M‑Files, with the states Lead, Qualified, Closed as won and Closed as lost. Each state can send notifications to specified roles, create assignments, give more users access or change metadata, which is how the wider sales team gets access at Qualified.
How are customers, opportunities and documents connected?
Customers, contacts and opportunities are objects in the same vault as the documents, and the documents link to them through metadata. Views are filtered on the same metadata, which is how a sales person gets a list of the open opportunities they own.
How do emails end up under the customer?
You file them from Outlook into M‑Files, and M‑Files can pick up the customer or the contact from the email. It works in classic Outlook, in the new Outlook and in Outlook on the web.
Do we need CtrlPortals to use M‑Files for CRM?
No. Customers, opportunities, the workflow and the views are M‑Files. CtrlPortals is a separate product from our development partner CtrlDocs, and it adds the dashboards, the sortable tables and the forms.
Can we keep our existing CRM?
Yes. M‑Files keeps lists such as customers and contacts in sync with an external database, so the CRM stays the master of the customer list and the pipeline, and M‑Files files the documents and emails under the customers it knows. Integration with your CRM or ERP is part of the implementation we scope with you.
Which CRM systems can be connected?
M‑Files keeps object lists in sync with an external database. How your CRM exposes its data decides how the connection is built, and we look at that when we scope the project with you. What our services cover lists integration and API work.
Can we write proposals from a template?
Yes. A template in M‑Files fills in details such as the customer's name when a proposal is created from it, and the fields are updated when the document is opened in Office. The proposal is saved under the customer and the opportunity with its metadata, and the signed contract joins it there; see contract management.