Open Pipelines and create one. The form asks four things, and only one of them is permanent.
Name it after the process rather than the team — “Enterprise onboarding” rather than “CS board”. It's the only required field.
A pipeline holds one record type, and the form says so plainly: this can't be changed later.
Pick based on who the process is really about. Onboarding and renewals are usually company-level — the account moves through the stages, not one person at it. Qualification and outreach are usually contact-level, because you're dealing with an individual who may not have a company recorded at all.
You start from one of four stage sets rather than typing your own:
Sales pipeline — Lead, Qualified, Proposal, Won, Lost.
Customer onboarding — Kickoff, In setup, Training, Live.
Renewals — Upcoming, At risk, Renewed, Churned.
Simple — New, In progress, Done.
Pick whichever is closest and rename the stages afterwards — renaming, reordering and adding stages all happen in the pipeline's settings once it exists.
When you do rename them, name a stage for the state something is in rather than the action you'll take. “Waiting on customer” says where a thing stands; “Follow up” says what someone should do, and stops being true the moment they do it.
This switch is on by default, which means everyone in the project sees the pipeline. Turn it off and only people added to it can, which is what you want for something sensitive like a churn-risk board.
The setting can be changed later, and it's the first thing to check when a colleague says the pipeline you just built doesn't appear for them.
You land on the empty board. The gear icon in the header opens the settings, where you rename the pipeline, edit its stages, add fields and set up automations. Next to it is the button that adds companies or contacts — the pipeline stays empty until you do.
