Many vendors place a time limit on how long a registered deal stays valid without winning the business before it expires. Channeltivity's Deal Registration supports this scenario and can be configured to automatically expire pending Deal Registrations after a specified number of days from the Deal's created date. This article provides a walkthrough on how to configure Deal expiration and Automatic Email Reminders to notify Partners and Partner Managers of expiring Deals and those that recently expired.


Step 1: Enable Deal Expiration


Go to Settings > Deal Registration > Deal Module Settings. In the "Deal Expiration" section, check the first box and any of the other boxes to determine how you'd like Deal Expiration to work:


  • The first checkbox, "Show Deal expiration date," determines whether the Deal expiration date should be visible within your Deal Registration module.

  • The second one, "Require Deal expiration date," specifies whether the Deal expiration date is mandatory. If your Deal Registration program allows certain Deals to stay active forever, you can leave this box unchecked.

  • The third, "Pre-populate the expiration date to N days from Deal creation," allows you to automate the way the expiration date is set for Deal Registrations. If selected, the system will pre-populate the Deal's Expiration Date when the Deal's Status is set to an "Open: Pre-approved" step in your Registration Status Workflow. Leaving this box unchecked, will require your channel team to set the expiration date manually.

  • Checking the fourth box, "Automatically expire Deals once they reach their expiration date and set their status to ..." will automatically change a Deal's Registration Status once it reaches its expiration date, provided that the Deal hasn't been archived or marked as Won or Lost. If you have a current workflow step for expired Deals, select it in the dropdown. If not, don't worry, we'll create it in a bit. Leaving this box unchecked will require that you manually update the registration status of expired Deals.



Step 2: Update your Registration Status Workflow


Once your Deal Registration expiration has been enabled, we need to update your registration workflow to indicate in which steps Deals can expire and to make sure the workflow includes an "Expired" step. For more information on how to configure the Deal Registration Status workflow, see this article.


The Deal Registration expiration date field becomes visible/editable when the Deal is in a workflow step that has expiration enabled. We recommend enabling expiration for all "Open: Pre-approved" workflow steps where the Deal Registration is approved and the Partner is working on closing the Deal, but it hasn't closed yet. You also have the ability to enable expiration for any "Open: Pending" workflow step except the one step that's marked as "Default for New Registrations." 


To configure your Registration Status Workflow to include an Open: Pre-approved step that Deals can expire in, go to Settings > Deal Registration > Registration Status Workflow. Click the "New Workflow Step" button and enter a title, select the "Open: Pre-approved" option and check the "Deals can expire in this step" checkbox.


Now that Deal expiration has been enabled for your workflow, we need to make sure the workflow includes an "Expired" step. (If you're not automatically setting Deals to an expired workflow step, please skip to Step 3 below.)


If you don't already have a step for expired Deal Registrations, click the "New Workflow Step" button and create a new step; we called it "Expired (Closed)" in this example, but you can name it whatever you wish. All Deals that expire will be automatically set to this step. Make sure to select the correct Type (Closed: Denied) and check the "Set expired Deals to this step" checkbox. If a step for expired Deals already exists, make sure it uses these settings too:


The below Registration Status Workflow is configured to expire Deals in the "In Progress (Open)" and "Pre-approved for 90 Days (Open)" steps. Once the Deals reach their expiration date, the system will automatically move them to the "Expired (Closed)" step in the workflow. 


Step 3: Configure Automatic Deal Expiration Email Reminders


A key component of getting Partners to take action on expiring Deal Registrations is to make sure they know that Deals are expiring. Channeltivity's automatic email reminders are a great way to do this. 


Go to Settings > Email > Automatic Email Reminders and make sure that both Deal Expiration reminders are activated:

  • The "Expiring Deals" reminder sends notifications of Deal Registrations that are about to expire in the next N days. This reminder is best sent weekly with a reminder period of 30 days. This ensures that each party is reminded 4-5 times before a Deal actually expires.

  • The "Expired Deals" reminder notifies Users of Deal Registrations that have expired in the last N days. Normally you'd want to set this to daily and set the reminder period to 1 day. This way, you'll get a single notification the day after a Deal expires.


That's it! You've completed the Deal Registration expiration date configuration process.