Overview

Risk Signals is where you find open deals that are stalling or poorly qualified, decide what to do about them, and close out the ones that are no longer worth your time. Every deal on the page has a Waste Score (also called the Deal Drag score) from 0 to 100. Higher means more drag.

Use it to:

Run a quick daily or weekly triage of your riskiest deals.
See what is driving each deal’s score, such as framework gaps, no recent activity, or activity without stage movement.
Review alerts for missing stakeholders, inactive contacts and slipping deals.
Qualify out several deals at once, with a reason recorded against each one.

The Waste Score is not the same as the Deal Health Score. Health Score is higher-is-better; Waste Score is higher-is-worse. See Deal Health Score Explained.

Where to find it

In the sidebar, open Deals.
In the tab bar (Command Centre / Risk Signals / Action Plans), choose Risk Signals.

The page lives at /crm/deal-drag-intelligence. Its heading reads Deal Drag Intelligence, with the subtitle “Triage pipeline waste, accelerate stalled deals, and reclaim forecast confidence.” Below that, a note says “Focused on active stages: Qualification, Discovery, Proposal, Negotiation.”Only open deals in those four stages that have been scored appear here.

Everyone in your organisation sees the same organisation-wide view. Use the Sales Rep filter to narrow it to particular owners.

Page layout at a glance

The buttons at the top right of the page are:

Field guide: opens the guided panel (formerly the Deal Drag Playbook). A red badge shows how many high-risk deals you have.
Filters: shows or hides the filter panel. A badge shows how many filters are active.
Qualify Out (N): appears only when you have ticked at least one deal.
Trends: shows or hides the trend chart.
Refresh: reloads the page data.

Below the buttons are four summary cards, then a Risk Triggers toggle, then the main deal table.

The four summary cards

The cards summarise every deal that matches your current filters, not just the page of the table you are viewing.

Average Waste Score (“Avg across all open deals”): the mean Waste Score, to one decimal place. The figure turns red at 60 or above, yellow from 30 to 59, and green below 30.
High Risk Deals (“Waste score ≥ 60”): how many deals score 60 or more. Next to the count you will see what share of the pipeline that is, for example “8% of pipeline”.
At Risk Value (“High + medium risk deals”): the total amount of every deal scoring 30 or more, with its share of total pipeline value.
Stalled Deals (“No activity detected”): deals with no activity logged in the last 30 days.

Hover over the information icon beside any card title for guidance on using it.

Filters

Click Filters to open the panel. You can set:

Sales Rep: one or more deal owners. Hold Ctrl or Cmd to select more than one.
Waste Score Range: a Min and Max between 0 and 100. For example, 60–100 gives you a triage list.
Stage: any of Qualification, Discovery, Proposal and Negotiation.
Calculated Date Range: a Start and End date, which filter on when each deal was last scored.
Activity Level: All Levels, High Activity, Medium Activity, Low Activity or Stalled.

Click Apply Filters to update the cards and table; the table returns to page 1. Reset clears every filter. The × button closes the panel without changing anything.

The deal table

The table is headed High Risk Opportunities, with the total count beside it, for example “(138 total)”. It lists every scored deal that matches your filters, with the highest Waste Score first.

Columns

Checkbox: ticks the deal for bulk qualify-out. The header checkbox ticks every deal on the current page.
Opportunity: the deal name, with the account underneath. Click the name to open the deal (see Opportunity Detail).
Owner: the deal owner.
Waste Score: a coloured pill (green 0–29, yellow 30–59, red 60+) followed by an activity dot. Hover over the dot to see the deal’s activity level:
- green: high, 10 or more activities in the last 30 days
- blue: medium, 3–9
- yellow: low, 1–2
- red: stalled, none
Key Issues: badges showing what is driving the score (see below).
Amount, Stage and Last Activity. Last Activity shows Never if nothing has been logged.

Key Issues badges

Framework gaps (X%): shown when 60% or more of the deal’s qualification components are weak.
Stale (X%): shown when the staleness part of the score is 60% or more, which means roughly 18 or more days since the last activity.
N missing components: how many framework components are below the quality bar.
Missing: <component>: the first weak component, for example “Missing: Metrics”.

Sorting and paging

Click the Owner, Waste Score, Amount, Stage or Last Activity heading to sort. Click the same heading again to reverse the order. Waste Score sorts highest first; the other columns sort ascending first. When there is more than one page, use the paging controls under the table. The default is 25 deals per page.

Show Rep Performance

Click Show Rep Performance in the table header to see up to eight rep cards above the table. Each card shows:

a High Risk, Medium Risk or Low Risk label, based on the rep’s average score (60+, 30–59, under 30)
Avg Waste Score
High Risk Deals, with its percentage
At Risk Value
Total Opportunities

Reps with any high-risk deals also show “Needs immediate attention”. If you have a Sales Rep filter set, only those reps are shown. Click Hide Rep Performance to close the cards.

Trends

Click Trends to open Deal Drag Trends. Choose Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days (the default) or Last 90 Days. The chart plots two lines, Avg Waste Score and High Risk Count, grouped by the date each deal was last scored. Because each deal keeps only its latest score, read this chart as a snapshot of recent scoring, not a full history. If nothing was scored in the period you chose, you will see “No trend data available”.

Risk Triggers

Click Risk Triggers to open the alerts panel; click it again to close it. A red badge on the button shows how many high-urgency triggers exist. The panel is headed Risk Triggers (“Real-time alerts — MEDDPIC gaps, contact inactivity, stalled deals.”), and inside it the list is titled Pipeline Nudges.

Filter chips: All, High Priority, Medium, Low, plus Selected Deal once you have clicked a trigger.
Groups: triggers are listed under High Urgency, Medium Urgency and Low Urgency.
Each card: the deal name, what was detected, when it was detected (Today, Yesterday, N days ago, or a date), and an urgency pill.
Clicking a card: highlights that deal, and the Selected Deal chip then lists only that deal’s triggers. To work on the deal, open it from the table.

If there are fewer triggers than high-risk deals, a yellow note explains that some activity or contact data is probably missing and suggests you also review the lowest-health deals. If a filter chip matches nothing, you will see “No risk triggers found” and “Try changing your filter to see more triggers”.

What raises a trigger

Decision maker gone quiet (high): no touchpoint with the deal’s decision maker for more than 21 days.
Champion gone quiet (medium): the champion has been inactive for more than 14 days.
Close date pushed repeatedly (high): the close date has moved two or more times, with fewer than two activities in the last 14 days.
No recent activity (medium): nothing logged on the deal in the past 14 days.
Weak Metrics or Decision Process on a committed deal (high): the deal is in Commit but those MEDDPIC components are poor or missing.
Economic Buyer not identified: high for deals over $50,000, otherwise medium.
Low-quality budget information (high): the BANT Budget component is weak.
Deal closing soon (medium): the close date is less than 30 days away and no contact-based trigger has fired.

Each trigger also carries a suggested next step, such as following up with a named contact.

Bulk Qualify Out

Qualifying out closes deals you no longer believe can be won and records why, so you can focus on live revenue.

Tick the deals you want to close out in the table. The header checkbox ticks the whole current page.
Click Qualify Out (N) in the page header.
Read the Bulk Qualify Out Opportunities dialog. A yellow warning says “You are about to qualify out N opportunities”, shows the total pipeline value, and says the deals will be marked “Closed Lost” and that this “cannot be easily undone”. Under Selected Opportunities:, each deal is listed with its amount and score.
Choose a Primary Reason (required). Reasons are grouped by category. The default list is Budget Constraints, No Decision Maker, No Compelling Need, Timeline Too Long, Poor Product Fit, Competitive Loss, Low Engagement and Technical Constraints. Your organisation may have its own list instead.
Optionally add Additional Notes for context.
Optionally choose a Nurture Path: No nurture, Short-term nurture (3-6 months), Long-term nurture (6+ months) or Partner/Channel opportunity. This choice is saved with the record; no follow-up is scheduled automatically.
Click Qualify Out N Opportunities. The button reads Qualifying Out... while it works. Cancel or × closes the dialog without changing anything.

What happens to each deal

The stage becomes Closed Lost.
The lost reason is set to “Qualified Out: <your reason>”.
The forecast category becomes Lost and the probability becomes 0.
A qualify-out record keeps who did it, when, the reason, your notes, the nurture path, and the deal’s Waste Score and missing components at that moment.

Your selection is cleared and the page reloads. The table can take a few minutes to catch up, so a deal you just qualified out may still appear briefly. Click Refresh a little later to confirm it has gone.

If something goes wrong, the page shows “Failed to qualify out opportunities. Please try again.” and your ticked deals stay selected. The whole batch is rejected if any selected deal has already left the four active stages, for example because someone closed it elsewhere. Refresh, re-select, and try again.

The Field guide

Click Field guide to open a slide-out panel of guided routines for working through dragged deals. Its header shows your total and stalled deal counts. If you have more than two high-risk deals, or more than $2M at risk, an alert line summarises how many deals need intervention and how much value is at risk; the wording escalates above five deals or $5M. The panel works on the deals you have ticked, or on the current page of the table if none are ticked.

Drag Analysis: “Your 10-Minute Deal Drag Analysis”, a five-step routine:
1. review critical drags (deals scoring 60+)
2. identify common drag patterns
3. check activity levels and engagement
4. assess recovery potential
5. assign specific interventions
Mark each step as done as you go.
Scenarios: six common drag patterns: Zombie Deal, Champion Gone Dark, Approval Hell, Feature Creep, Budget Freeze and Competitive Pressure. Each shows how many of your deals match it. Expand one to see how to identify it, common root causes, recovery tactics and an email template. Edit any template before you use it.
Recovery: intervention strategies grouped as technical, commercial, political and process drag, with action steps for each.
Prevention: early-warning indicators, stage-gate exit criteria, velocity benchmarks, rep coaching ideas, and a quick prevention checklist.

Its Recovery tab includes Run the Stalled pipeline fix, which opens the Stalled pipeline Fix playbook. Close the panel with Close Field guide or the ×.

How the Waste Score is calculated

The Waste Score (0–100, higher means more drag) combines four parts:

Framework gap, 30%: the share of the deal’s MEDDPIC, BANT and SPICED components that score below 60% quality. Those components are the “missing components” shown in Key Issues. A component below 30% is marked high impact; the rest are medium impact. See AE Framework guide.
Staleness, 25%: the days since the last activity, scaled so that 0 days scores 0 and 30 or more days scores 100. A deal with no activity at all scores 100.
Activity vs movement, 25%: whether activity is moving the deal forward, measured over the last 30 days:
- no activity: 100
- more than five activities and no stage change: 80
- one or two activities and no stage change: 70
- three to five activities and no stage change: 50
- any stage change: 30
AI signals, 20%: this part is reserved and currently contributes nothing, so it is always 0. In practice the highest score most deals can reach is 80.

The one exception: a deal with no activity in the last 30 days is treated as stalled, and its score is raised to at least 75.

Worked example: a deal with an 82% framework gap, staleness 6, and activity-vs-movement 80 scores 0.30 × 82 + 0.25 × 6 + 0.25 × 80 + 0.20 × 0 = 46.

Bands

0–29: healthy (green).
30–59: monitor (yellow). Counted in At Risk Value.
60–100: triage now (red). Counted as High Risk.

When scores update

Scores are recalculated once a day across all active deals. A deal is also rescored whenever you open it. If a change you made has not shown up yet, open the deal and then click Refresh on Risk Signals.

The Qualify-out score on a deal

When you open a deal, the same Waste Score appears in two places. Both are for information; to close a deal out, use Bulk Qualify Out on Risk Signals.

On the Deal Health tab, a card at the top right shows the Qualify-out score. Below it, All open gaps across frameworks lists each component below target, with its framework, a high or medium impact pill, and its score. If there are none, it says “No tracked gaps right now.”
On the Cockpit tab, the Qualify-out risk score shows the score out of 100 with bars for Staleness, Activity drop, Framework gaps and AI signals (always 0). This lets you see which part is driving the number.

A red marker on the Deal Health tab means the deal scores 60 or more. See Opportunity Detail for the rest of the deal page.

Common workflows

Triage at-risk deals

Open Deals → Risk Signals and read the four cards.
Optionally open Filters, set Waste Score Range to 60–100 or Activity Level to Stalled, and click Apply Filters.
Work down the table from the highest Waste Score, reading Key Issues for each deal.
Open a deal to fix the gap: log activity, update framework components, or add a missing stakeholder.
For deals that cannot be saved, use Bulk Qualify Out.

Qualify out a batch

Filter to the deals you want to review, for example Stalled deals scoring 75+.
Tick the deals, then click Qualify Out (N).
Check the list and the total value, choose a Primary Reason, add notes and a nurture path, and confirm.

Read a trigger and act on it

Click Risk Triggers, then the High Priority chip.
Read what was detected and the deal it applies to.
Find the deal in the table, open it, and take the suggested step, such as following up with the named contact.

For a prioritised weekly to-do list built from these signals, see Weekly Action Plan.

Loading, empty and error states

First load: a full-page spinner.
Reloading (after filtering, sorting, paging or Refresh): the cards show grey placeholders, and the table may show “Loading opportunities...”.
No matching deals: “No high risk opportunities” and “No opportunities match the current filters.”
Page failed to load: a red banner, “Failed to load Deal Drag dashboard. Please try again.” Dismiss it and click Refresh.
No triggers: if there are no triggers at all, the Risk Triggers panel does not open.

Troubleshooting

The page is empty but I have open deals. Only deals in Qualification, Discovery, Proposal or Negotiation are scored and shown. Deals in other stages, or new deals not yet scored, will not appear until they are scored.
A deal I qualified out is still listed. The list can take a few minutes to refresh. Click Refresh again shortly.
A score has not changed after I logged activity. Open the deal to rescore it, then refresh Risk Signals.
Qualify-out failed. One of the selected deals has probably been closed or moved out of the active stages. Refresh, re-select and try again.
The Primary Reason list is empty. Ask your admin to set up qualify-out reasons. You cannot submit without one.
Trends shows a single point. Trends groups deals by when they were last scored. Because scores are refreshed daily, most deals share the same date.

Risk Signals: Triage Stalled Deals & Qualify Out