This article will cover the following topic:

Opportunity Recurrence is designed to help streamline the creation of “Follow up” opportunities that recur a period of time after the original (current) Opportunity is Won or Lost (or both).

A great example of this is when you have sold an annual contract — at the point of winning the first sale, you already know there is an opportunity to renew the contract in a year’s time and Opportunity Recurrence gives you a quick and easy way to “Clone” your original opportunity and put the copy/clone back in your pipeline for next year ⤵

Another use case might be when you’ve been working on an Opportunity and you find out they have chosen a competitor this time around. As you Archive (lose) that Opportunity, you want to clone it and for the new one to be in your pipeline to work on to try to win it next time ⤵

NOTE: It’s important that you set recurrence options shortly before you Win or Lose (archive) the Opportunity that you’re working on to avoid any unintentional opportunities being created and to keep control of your closing dates!

Open up an Opportunity and you’ll see the “Set Recurrence” button beside the Closing Date field.

NOTE: Your Admins might have re-named Closing Date in your system ⤵

Click on “Set Recurrence” to access the Opportunity Recurrence Settings.

NOTE: Remember that you are choosing these options for a brand new opportunity to be copied from the current opportunity that you have open in the background ⤵

NOTE: You get to choose the step/stage as it may not be necessary to put the new cloned Opportunity right back to the beginning of your pipeline as you’ll already have been through your process while working on the current opportunity.

Next, you need to choose your Recurrence Pattern.

NOTE: Your new cloned Opportunity will have its closing date automatically set based on the choices you make here and some of the options will also update the expected closing date of the current open Opportunity.

Repeat every "X" days — depending on the choices you have already selected, a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date of "X" days after the date you choose in “Starts on”. The Close Date of the current opportunity will be adjusted to fit the pattern.

So, if your current opportunity has a closing date of 10th June and you’ve selected Repeat every 15 days and Starts on 10th June, your current opportunity close date will be changed to 24th June and, when you win it, the new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of 9th July even if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June. The Starts On date is included in the total.

Repeat Opportunity "X" days after opportunity has been won or lost -— depending on the choices you have already selected, a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date of "X" days after the date you actually win/lose it.

If your current opportunity has a closing date of 15th June and you’ve selected Repeat Opportunity 15 days after opportunity has been won or lost, your new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of 24th June if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June.

Repeat every "X" weeks on M(onday), T(uesday), W(edneday), T(hursday), F(riday), S(aturday), S(unday) — depending on the choices you have already selected, a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date of "X" weeks after the date you choose in “Starts on” on the day(s) you have selected. The Close Date of the current opportunity will be adjusted to fit the pattern.

You can select more than one day of the week and deselect by clicking on the day you want to remove.

If your current opportunity has a closing date of 10th June and you’ve selected Repeat every 1 week on F(riday) and Starts on 10th June, your current opportunity close date will be changed to Friday 12th June and the new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of Friday 19th June even if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June. The Starts On date is included in the total.

Repeat Opportunity "X" weeks after opportunity has been won or lost — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date of "X" weeks after the date you actually win/lose it.

Repeat on day "X" every y months — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date on the day "X" of the following "Y" month after the date you choose in “Starts on”. The Close Date of the current opportunity will be adjusted to fit the pattern.

If your current opportunity has a closing date of 10th June and you’ve selected Repeat on Day 1 every 1 month and Starts on 10th June, your current opportunity close date will be changed to 1st July and the new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of 1 August even if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June. The Starts On date is included in the total.

Repeat on (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Last) (select day of the week) every "X" months — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date on the selected day of the following "Y" month after the date you choose in “Starts on”. The Close Date of the current opportunity will be adjusted to fit the pattern.

If your current opportunity has a closing date of 10th June and you’ve selected Repeat on Second Monday every 1 month and Starts on 10th June, your current opportunity close date will be changed to 15th June and the new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of 13th July (the second Monday in July) even if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June. The Starts On date is included in the total.

Repeat Opportunity "X" months after opportunity has been won or lost — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date of "X" months after the date you actually win/lose it.

Repeat every (select month) (select date) — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date on the selected date/month of the following year after the date you choose in “Starts on”. The Close Date of the current opportunity will be adjusted to fit the pattern.

If your current opportunity has a closing date of 10th June and you’ve selected Repeat every January 1 and Starts on 10th June, your current opportunity close date will be changed to 1st January 2021 and the new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of 1 January 2022 even if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June 2020. The Starts On date is included in the total.

Repeat on (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Last) (select day of the week) (select month of the year) — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date on the selected date/month of the following year after the date you choose in “Starts on”. The Close Date of the current opportunity will be adjusted to fit the pattern.

If your current opportunity has a closing date of 10th June and you’ve selected Repeat every Second Thursday in January and Starts on 10th June, your current opportunity close date will be changed to 14th January 2021 and the new cloned opportunity will have a closing date of 13th January 2022 even if you were to win the opportunity today, 9th June 2020. The Starts On date is included in the total.

Repeat Opportunity "X" years after opportunity has been won or lost — a copy of the current opportunity will be created in the step you have chosen with a closing date of "X" months after the date you actually win/lose it.

As well as "Starts" on which you select for some recurrence options, you can set the recurrence to stop.

If you open an Opportunity, if recurrence is set, you will see a reminder of the pattern below the Closing Date and an "Edit Recurrence" button and a "Skip" button.

If you choose “Skip”, the current opportunity will be updated to reflect the next recurrence date — e.g. the Closing Date will update from "2022" to "2023" if you skip a yearly recurrence ⤵

You can also see all Opportunities that have recurrence options set by using the "List View" for Opportunities and adding the field “Has Recurrence” into the view ⤵

You could even filter by “Has Recurrence” ⤵

NOTE: These are useful tips for Administrators to enable them to find Opportunities where a user may have inadvertently set recurrence, or forgotten they have set recurrence, and are complaining that Opportunities are just recreating randomly when archiving or winning!

From an open Opportunity with recurrence set, click on “Edit Recurrence” and then Remove. Edit your "Opportunity Close Date" to make sure it’s accurate and then "Save" your changes ⤵