As the sales reps deal with multiple opportunities at a time, a customized action plan defining the course of action in every stage of a deal helps them track the progress and increase productivity. The mutual action plan helps sales organizations manage a sales cycle effectively from deal creation to closure by defining a series of milestones and steps that sellers should accomplish to move forward in a deal cycle.

Mutual Action Plan comes with a predefined template, which is customized initially per your requirements. Later, you can modify it to suit a particular deal. An Action Plan has a set of milestones and every milestone has one or more tasks. A deal owner can create or update a milestone, create or update tasks inside the milestone, assign a task to any team member, and mark the tasks as complete. After all the tasks in a milestone are marked as complete, the milestone appears as complete.

Create, delete, and update a milestone

A deal owner can create a milestone, map it to a deal stage, add a start and end date, and apply a color to distinguish it from the other milestones.

1. Click a deal on the Deals screen to open the deals detail screen.
2.  Click Action Plan to open the Action Plan screen.
   
   Action Plan screen appears and shows deals stages.
3. Click the arrow facing the right-hand side.
   
   The MILESTONES dialog box appears with predefined milestones and it lets you create new Milestones.
   
4.  Click the Add icon beside MILESTONES to add a new milestone.
   
   The Create Milestone dialog box appears.
   
5. Enter a name of the milestone of your choice in the Milestone title field.
6. Add start date and target to complete date in the Start Date and
   Target Date fields respectively.
7. Select a color to apply on the milestone.
8. Select a stage to map from the Stage drop-down list.
9. Click Create.
   The newly created milestone appears in the Action Plan along the timeline.
10. Expand a milestone and click on the menu icon to edit or delete the milestone.
    
    Clicking on Edit opens the Update Milestone dialog box and lets you modify all the fields such as 
    Milestone title, Start Date, Target Date, Stage, and Color.
11. After you create a milestone, add the associated tasks that you or the reps should accomplish between the start and target dates.

Create, delete, and update a task in a milestone

A deal owner can add and update tasks in a milestone and delete the task.

1. On the MILESTONES dialog box, click Add items.
   
   The Create Checklist for <milestone name> dialog box appears and lets you create a new task.
   
2. Enter a name of the task of your choice in the Check list Title field.
3. Enter a start date and target to complete date in the Start Date and Target Date fields respectively.
4. Type the name of the team member who you want to assign the task in the
   Assign To field and press Enter.
5. Click Create.
6. After you accomplished a task, select the checkbox against the task to mark
   it as Complete.
7. Click the Menu icon against a task to edit or delete a task.
   
   Clicking Edit opens Update Checklist for <milestone name> dialog box and lets you update all the fields such as 
   Check list Title, Start Date, Target Date, and Assign To.