If you’ve wandered into DealHub’s system settings, you may have come across an innocuous checkbox titled Enable continuous versions
While a simple toggle, it actually dramatically changes the way that draft quotes behave if you open them after a new DealHub version was activated.
You should consider which option works best for your business.
Let’s take a simple example to understand
As a sales rep, on the 24th of December, I go ahead an create a quote for my customer and save it as a draft, then go on holiday.
This is done while version V10 is active in my DealHub environment.
I have a simple SaaS line item with a list price of $100 per user per month and an advanced analytics with a list price $5,000.
While I’m still working on the draft quote, nothing gets sent to the customer.
On the 1st of January, my DealHub admin activates V11, in which the list price of my SaaS product goes up to $120 per user per month, and advanced analytics no longer exists.
Both reflect the evolution of my company’s business and offerings
On the 5th of January I come back from my holiday and wish to resume working on my quote.
What happens next will vary based on the continuous versions setting:
Option 1 - non-continuous versions (default)
By default the behavior is that even though a new version was released, there will be no impact on existing draft quotes.
I can either keep working on my quotes with no changes, or go ahead and submit/publish it.
This follows the principle that we respect whatever I may have already discussed with the customer, and our new offering will only apply to new quotes created after the 1st of January.
In order to not maintain this status quo indefinitely, this setting is accompanied by a Version expiration timer, in days. This allows a grace period to the sales rep to submit and publish his quote based on the quote’s original version for a set period of time, after which the quote will need to be updated to the new version
note: This setting impacts playbook questions, products, approval workflows, DR and PDF templates and essentially everything that’s contained within a version.
note 2: This only applies to existing draft quotes so that they can be promptly submitted. If I duplicate my quote, then at this
Option 2 - continuous versions
With this option selected, once a new version is activated I can no longer submit my original quote as is.
It will be visually marked with a yellow highlight and exclamation mark.
At this point, to continue, I will be obligated to click into the quote and open it. This will trigger a general recalculation of the quote, which will be adapted as close to the new version automatically.
In my example, the list price of my SaaS product will go up to $120.
My advanced analytics product will be deleted from the quote.
Playbook questions, approvals, document templates etc will match the new versions.
This option leans on the philosophy that the entire organization switches to the new pricing/offerings at the same time, and that if I wanted to sell in the previous model, I should have sent the quote before the update.
Both methods have their pros and cons, and it ends up being up to each organization what works best for it.
Which setting have you chosen for your sales team, and why?