1. General
1.1. What the overview does
The overview of the AI Sales Assistant shows you on one page which sales projects need your attention right now and what to do about them – across all projects, not just one. It is the counterpart to the assistant in the detail view: there it answers three questions about one project, here it answers one question about all of them: what do I start with today?
To do that, the assistant first picks out the projects that stand out, ranks them by the measure you choose – by volume, for example – and analyses the ones at the top. For each of those projects you then see:
the figures of the project – volume, close probability, deal score and priority,
the buying center – who on the customer's side is involved in the decision,
the AI deal summary – quick overview, key facts and risks,
the next best actions – the recommended next steps, each one carried out with a click.
These are the same contents as in the assistant in the detail view, produced by the same analysis – only for many projects one below the other instead of for a single one. Where this article is brief, you will find the full explanation in the article AI Sales Assistant in the detail view.
The same holds here: the assistant does not take any decision off your hands. Without your click nothing is sent and nothing is created.
1.2. Opening the overview
You open the overview from the entry AI Sales Assistant at the top right of the main menu. The entry only appears if the AI Sales Assistant has been enabled for your tenant. If it is missing, please contact your administrator.
Picture 1 – The „AI Sales Assistant" entry in the main menu
1.3. How the page is built
The page reads from top to bottom like this:
| No. | Area | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Info cards | Why these actions?, Largest potential, Time planning, Scope of the analysis |
| 2 | Header | Title, filters, time of the last analysis, button to recalculate |
| 3 | Metrics bar | Six tiles with the totals across all projects shown |
| 4 | Sorting bar | The number of recommendations and the sort order of the list |
| 5 | Project list | One block per project with figures, buying center, deal summary and next best actions |
The first time you open it, the assistant works through all projects. That takes a few minutes; while it runs, the page says „The next best actions are being calculated". The result is then kept for 15 minutes, so opening it again is instant.
Picture 2 – How the page is built: info cards, header, metrics, sorting bar, project list
2. The metrics bar
Below the title there are six tiles. They sum up what is in the list below them – not the whole database. Narrow the list with the filters and the tiles change with it.
| No. | Tile | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Recommended actions | All recommendations in the list. The link Show all clears every filter. |
| 2 | Critical | Recommendations on the highest priority level – these need immediate attention. |
| 3 | High priority | Recommendations on the second highest level – recommended for today. |
| 4 | Total potential | The volume of all projects shown, added up. |
| 5 | Possible revenue | The same volume, each weighted by the project's close probability. |
| 6 | Estimated time | Roughly how long the next step on each project takes, added up. |
Two points on this that are easy to miss:
Critical and High priority refer to the top two steps of your own priority scale. What those steps are called, which colour they carry and at which score they begin is set in the administration – the tile takes its colour from there.
Estimated time deliberately counts only the first recommendation per project. If it added up every recommendation, it would show a day and a half of work – steps that mostly wait on each other anyway. The minutes are also rough figures per kind of action, not measured times.
Picture 3 – The six tiles of the metrics bar
3. A project in the list
Each project gets a block of its own. At the top it says who it is about, and beside that the four figures of the project.
3.1. Customer and project
On the left, one below the other, are the company logo, the customer name, the customer consultant, the project name and the project consultant. Clicking either name opens the project. The three dots beside them let you edit the customer or the project straight from here.
If a project has no name, the date it was created stands in its place – exactly as in the project view.
3.2. The four figures
| No. | Figure | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Volume | The project volume. The pencil symbol lets you correct it right here – a wrong figure is noticed while reading this list and nowhere else. |
| 3 | Probability | The close probability estimated by the AI, as a ring with a percentage, and below it the confidence level (Low, Medium, High, Very high). |
| 4 | Deal score | How important the project is right now, as a score with a coloured level. |
| 5 | Priority | The level of this project's strongest next best action. |
Number 1 in the picture is the block with company, project and the two consultants from the previous section.
Under each figure there is View factors. The link opens the same breakdown as in the detail view: the individual plus and minus points with their reasoning and their evidence. The small i beside Probability and Priority, by contrast, opens the general list of all possible factors – independent of this project.
Beside the probability there is also the switch Apply the AI-calculated close probability to the project. It works just as it does in the detail view: switched on, the project's „Chance" field permanently takes over the computed value.
Picture 5 – The header of a project with its four figures
3.3. Why this priority?
If you click View factors under Priority, a window opens with three numbers – priority, impact on chance and score – and below them the arithmetic:
a base score that belongs to the kind of recommendation („Create and send an offer" carries the highest, „Send references" a low one),
a bonus for this project, which follows the volume and your company's bonus rules,
the score as the sum of the two.
What matters is what the score does not say. It only puts the recommendations in order. It says nothing about how likely the deal is to close – that is the chance – and nothing about how much the project is worth – that is the deal score. A high score on a hopeless project only means: if you take it on, then with this.
Base scores, bonuses and the priority levels with their names, colours and thresholds are set in the administration.
4. Buying center and AI deal summary
Below the figures there are two cards side by side – on the left the people involved, on the right the assessment of the situation.
4.1. Buying center
The card shows the most important people on the project, ranked by relevance. The number beside the heading says how many of them are currently visible. For each person you see the name, the roles as coloured labels, the position and the e-mail address.
The details:
Clicking the name opens the contact person.
Clicking the e-mail address opens your mail program. The message automatically carries the project's SELLSATION address as a blind copy, so the answer lands on the project. The symbol beside it copies the address.
The three dots offer Edit, Remove and Download business card.
The sort symbol at the top matches the one in the project view: you choose which role group the list is ranked by. The setting applies on both screens.
Add a contact and Assign roles and add contacts both open the buying center window, where you assign roles and create the people who are missing.
If nobody has been recorded yet, it says „No contact person recorded yet". For a private customer the card is left out entirely – there is no buying center there.
4.2. AI deal summary
The second card has three columns, the same ones as in the Deal Summary tab of the detail view:
| No. | Column | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Quick overview | The state of the project in a few sentences |
| 3 | Key facts | The milestones detected, with their dates; each line leads to its evidence |
| 4 | Open items / risks | What stands in the way of closing, or „No open risks detected" |
Number 1 in the picture is the buying center from the previous section.
The lines under Key facts are clickable and lead to the activity the fact came from. Some lines offer an action instead of evidence – for example Create new activity, Move project to another phase or View the activities.
Below the two cards there is View deal summary. It opens the full deal summary in a window – exactly the view from the detail view, including close probability, deal score, learnings and the history of actions. From there Open project takes you into the project.
Picture 6 – Buying center and AI deal summary of a project
5. The next best actions
This is what the page is actually for: under every project are the recommended next steps, each one ready to carry out.
5.1. The block at a glance
Above the recommendations it says Next best actions with their number, and beside it the customer and project again – because by the time you get here, the head of the block has long scrolled out of view. Clicking it opens the project.
Below that is an information box Recommended next actions, saying where the recommendations come from, followed by three lists you can unfold:
Closed next best actions
Postponed next best actions
Deleted next best actions
Each one records who did what and when, and every entry can be undone.
The top recommendations are visible to begin with. If there are more, +n more unfolds the rest.
Picture 7 – The „Next best actions" block of a project, shortened here to the first two recommendations
5.2. How a row is built
| No. | Element | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Number and title | The order is the order of the work – first qualify, then find the people, then make the offer |
| 2 | Estimated time | A rough figure in minutes for this step |
| 3 | Impact | Chance +x % (percentage points of close probability) and Deal score +y (points) |
| 4 | Priority | The level of this one recommendation |
| 5 | Why this action? | Unfolds how it was derived |
| 6 | Reason | What about this project triggered the recommendation, plus the triggers as small labels |
| 7 | Suggested actions | Advice in full sentences on what to do |
| 8 | Closed / Remind me later / Delete | Finish the step, push it back, or take it off the list |
| 9 | Buttons | The ways to carry the step out – the first one is highlighted |
At the end of each row are Closed, Remind me later and Delete. Deleted recommendations are not lost – they go into the Deleted next best actions list and can be brought back at any time.
With some recommendations – Capture the traits of won deals, for instance – there is no button but input fields right in the row. Filling them in is the action there.
Picture 8 – How a recommendation row is built, here with „Why this action?" unfolded
5.3. Which recommendations there are
The assistant can show the following recommendations, for example. Base score is the score the priority follows from; Chance and Deal score are the impacts.
| Recommendation | Appears when … | Base score | Chance | Deal score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create and send an offer | the project is open and no offer has been sent yet | 85 | +9 % | +14 |
| Re-engage the contact | there has been no communication for more than 30 days | 82 | +6 % | +10 |
| Identify decision maker | nobody is recognisable as a decision maker | 78 | +8 % | +12 |
| Establish a binding timeframe | the project is open and no urgency is detectable | 76 | +6 % | +12 |
| Prepare differentiation from competitors | a competitor was detected, a competing offer exists or an offer has been sent | 74 | +6 % | +9 |
| Involve the executive level | the project is open and management is not involved | 72 | +6 % | +12 |
| Send an ROI case by e-mail | an offer has been sent and management or budget is in play | 70 | +5 % | +8 |
| Bring about a personal meeting | the project is open and no personal meeting has taken place | 68 | +4 % | +8 |
| Have the need qualified and confirmed | the project is open and the need is not confirmed | 66 | +4 % | +8 |
| Arrange a decision meeting | an offer has been sent and no appointment lies ahead | 66 | +7 % | +11 |
| Review and move the phase | the project is open and has stood in the same phase too long – how long is measured on your own won projects | 62 | +4 % | +8 |
| Send product benefits by e-mail | a presentation or a personal meeting took place but no offer has been sent | 62 | +3 % | +5 |
| Complete an overdue task | overdue tasks are open | 58 | +4 % | +6 |
| Send the company presentation by e-mail | the project is open and neither a presentation nor a personal meeting took place | 54 | +4 % | +7 |
| Send references by e-mail | the project is open, an offer has been sent, but no references yet | 50 | +4 % | +6 |
| Capture the traits of won deals | the execution date is missing on the project | 46 | +3 % | +5 |
Three notes on this:
The values in this table are starting values. The assistant measures against your own won and lost projects and writes its own figures over them – with Capture the traits of won deals, for instance, „+3 % / +5" may become „+10 % / +10".
On top of the base score comes a bonus for the particular project. The priority shown follows the sum: from 80 Critical, from 70 High, from 55 Medium, below that Low.
The list is not fixed. In the administration you can switch individual recommendations off, change their values and create your own – with your own title, your own description and the condition under which they appear. Beyond that, the assistant proposes new recommendations by itself: it searches your closed projects for patterns under which deals are won less often and puts what it finds to an administrator for a decision.
5.4. What happens when you click
As in the detail view: the assistant creates nothing by itself but opens the familiar dialog – pre-filled. Depending on the recommendation, the first button reads Create e-mail, Send appointment proposals, Create a call task, Assign roles and add contacts or Move phase. Create a task and Write a note are available on every recommendation. The full description is in the article AI Sales Assistant in the detail view.
5.5. Putting a whole project aside
Below a project's recommendations there are two buttons:
Reminder – the project disappears from the list and comes back afterwards. The default is 7 days; 3, 14 and 30 days are offered beside it, or you set a date.
Stop showing this project – the project disappears from this list permanently, even if something about it changes. You are asked first.
Both are remembered by your browser only. Sign in on another device or in another browser and the project is visible there again.
6. The info cards above the list
At the very top of the page – above the title – there are four cards that relate to the whole list.
6.1. Why these actions?
The first card names what the recommendations rest on:
signals detected in the project history,
recent activities and open tasks,
the current phase and how long it has lasted,
volume and the computed close probability.
View factors unfolds all positive and negative factors below it as coloured labels. That list comes straight from your configuration: a factor switched off in the administration disappears here with it.
6.2. Largest potential
The three projects with the highest volume, numbered 1 to 3, each with customer, project, the consultants responsible and the amount. The names open the project, the three dots the record.
6.3. Time planning
One sentence on how much time the next step costs across all projects shown – for example „For the 20 projects, roughly 100 minutes are planned for the next step on each project". These are rough figures per kind of action, not measured times, and further recommendations on the same project are not counted in.
6.4. Scope of the analysis
This card only appears when there are more projects needing attention than could be analysed. It then says how many of how many were analysed – the largest first. If the card is missing, everything that qualified was analysed.
Picture 9 – The four info cards above the list
7. A worked example from start to finish
Every picture in this article shows the same project. Read together, they show what the page is for.
7.1. The starting position
Endeavor Enterprise from Austria, project Plant renewal, 180,000 € volume. The project is in the Offer phase: an offer has been sent, a presentation and a personal meeting have been held, several decision makers are involved. The buying center holds two people – Huber Sabine (Managing Director) and Berger Thomas (Head of Purchasing).
So far so good. The figures say something else:
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Probability | 16 %, confidence level Low |
| Deal score | 25, level Low |
| Priority | High |
7.2. Why the project is in the list at all
Three things stand under Open items / risks, and each one is backed by evidence:
Long inactivity – the last activity was 57 days ago.
The phase has not moved – the last phase change was 75 days ago.
Decision appointment missing – there is no follow-up appointment in the calendar.
So the offer sits with the customer and nothing has happened for two months. That is exactly what the page is for: this project does not stand out in an ordinary project list, because nothing about it is „due". It has simply stopped moving.
7.3. What the assistant suggests
Four steps, in the order in which they are to be done:
| # | Next best action | Time | Chance | Deal score | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Capture the traits of won deals | 5 min | +10 % | +10 | Low |
| 2 | Identify decision maker | 15 min | +8 % | +12 | High |
| 3 | Involve the executive level | 15 min | +6 % | +12 | High |
| 4 | Arrange a decision meeting | 10 min | +7 % | +11 | Medium |
| 5 | Send the product benefits by e-mail | 10 min | +3 % | +5 | Medium |
This shows nicely how the order comes about:
The priority is not the order. Step 1 has the lowest priority and still stands first, because it moves the most – and because it takes five minutes.
Know first, then talk. „Identify decision maker" comes before „Involve the executive level": as long as nobody is recorded as a decision maker, you do not know whom to involve.
The appointment comes last. Arranging a decision meeting only makes sense once it is clear who should sit in it.
7.4. What you actually do
You work the four rows from top to bottom without leaving the page:
Under Capture the traits of won deals, the missing entries are input fields right in the row. You fill in what you know and save.
Under Identify decision maker, Assign roles and add contacts opens the buying center. You give Huber Sabine the role Decision maker.
Involve the executive level opens the same window – here you add the people at management level who are missing.
Under Arrange a decision meeting, Send appointment proposals sends an e-mail with free times from your calendar.
Under Send the product benefits by e-mail, Create e-mail opens the draft the AI has already written – you read it through and send it.
Every step you finish moves via Closed into the Closed next best actions list. On the next run the assistant recalculates – with a decision maker recorded, the risk No decision maker identified falls away, and chance and deal score rise accordingly.
Together that is roughly 55 minutes for a project worth 180,000 € that would otherwise have gone on sitting there.
8. Which projects are shown
8.1. When a project appears at all
The list does not hold every project, only the ones that stand out. A project qualifies if it is open and at least one of these applies:
There is an overdue task.
Nothing has been recorded on it at all.
The last activity is more than 30 days ago.
The project has been in the same phase for more than 30 days.
A project that was worked on yesterday needs no nudge and therefore does not appear.
Of those qualifying projects, at most 20 are actually analysed by the AI. Each analysis is a computation of its own, and twenty is what you work through in a morning. If there are more candidates than places, the card Scope of the analysis appears at the top, saying how many of how many were analysed.
8.2. Selection of projects – which twenty they are
Which twenty those are is up to you. At the very top of the filter there is Selection of projects with six options:
| Selection | Ranked by |
|---|---|
| By volume | the project volume |
| By forecast (volume × chance) | volume times the chance kept on the project |
| By forecast (volume × chance AI) | volume times the chance computed by the AI |
| By chance | the chance kept on the project |
| By chance (AI) | the chance computed by the AI |
| By deal score | the deal score |
This selection takes effect at once – it is a fresh question to the system, not a narrowing of the list already loaded. The three AI measures use values computed weekly; as long as no project has such a value, the ranking falls back to volume.
8.3. The other filters
Below that, five more groups narrow the list already loaded. Beside each entry you see how many recommendations fall under it.
| Group | Choice |
|---|---|
| Scope | All actions or My actions; underneath additionally Filter by project consultant and Filter by customer consultant |
| Period | Today (last contact at most 7 days ago), This week (8 to 30 days), Overdue (more than 30 days, or never) |
| Priority | Your priority levels, each one tickable |
| Type of action | E-mail, call, appointment, task, activity |
| Sales process(es) and phases | Multiple choice; the phase list only offers phases of the chosen processes |
These filters take effect with Apply filter. Reset filter puts everything back. Your setting is remembered – even after you sign in again. When something is narrowed, the filter symbol carries a small plus.
Picture 4 – The filter window with all its groups
8.4. Sorting
Above the list, on the left, is the number of recommendations, and beside it Sorting. You can choose the same six measures as under Selection of projects, plus Priority and Impact on chance. Unlike the selection of projects, sorting only reorders what is already there.
8.5. Recalculating
At the top right it says Last updated with date and time. The result is kept for 15 minutes. The arrow symbol beside it starts a new calculation; the current list stays on screen until the new one is ready.
9. Requirements and notes
Activation. The AI Sales Assistant has to be enabled for your tenant. If the entry is missing from the main menu, please contact your administrator.
The first calculation takes time. Across all projects that is a few minutes. The result is then kept for 15 minutes; the arrow symbol forces a fresh calculation.
Open and conspicuous projects only. Closed projects do not appear, and neither does a project that is being worked on right now.
At most 20 projects per run. Which ones is up to you, under Selection of projects.
Filters are remembered, even after you sign out. Projects you postpone or hide, by contrast, are remembered only by the browser you are sitting at.
Language. Labels and generated texts appear in the language you signed in with. German, English, Polish and Czech are available.
If the AI service is unavailable, the message „The AI Sales Assistant is currently unavailable. Please try again shortly." appears. Your data is not affected.
The better maintained, the more useful. Roles, positions, participants in appointments and meaningful subject lines improve the result immediately – they are exactly what the assistant draws its conclusions from.
Recommendations stay recommendations. Nothing is sent or created without your click, and every generated text can be changed before sending.
A separate article on the administration of the AI Sales Assistant is in preparation. It will cover the factors, the next best actions configuration, the priority levels and the bonus rules.
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