The Sales Guide and project pipeline

Set up your rate card

1. Go to Settings › Sales guide › Manage sales guide.

2. Choose your Currency and enter your Default hourly rate. Optionally set Rates per area, Round prices to and License prices per seat per month (used to value license opportunities).

3. Decide whether customer proposals show prices with Show prices in customer proposals, then select Save rate card.

4. Under Project templates, adjust the base hours of any project, set a fixed price, or Hide projects you don’t sell. Under Custom projects, add your own services.

The rate card applies to the next assessment: each Sales Guide keeps the prices it was built with. Without a rate the guide shows effort in hours only.

What the Sales Guide contains

• Executive opportunity summary: estimated one-time and monthly value, the number of P1 projects and license opportunities.
• Project cards for every project the findings trigger: why now, the evidence from the assessment, deliverables, prerequisites (including licenses), effort sized for the tenant, price and a talk track.
• License ladder: upgrade paths such as Business Premium to E5 Security, Defender for Endpoint P1 to P2, Entra ID P1 to P2, Intune Suite, Purview E5 Compliance, E3 to E5 and Copilot, with seats and, when you set license prices, a monthly value.
• A suggested QBR agenda, three email templates (assessment follow-up, proposal cover note, QBR invitation) and objection handling.

Open it from the assessment’s Sales guide tab (Open Sales Guide, or Download Word).

The project catalog

About 30 project templates across Identity, Devices, Email, Data protection, Collaboration, Defender, Licensing, Copilot, Backup and Training. Each is one of five types: Quick win, Implementation, License upgrade, Managed service (billed monthly) or Assessment follow-up. A project appears only when the assessment’s findings, license state or tenant data call for it; information that could not be collected never triggers a project.

Priority: P1 when a “Fix now” finding backs the project, P2 for “Improve” findings, P3 otherwise. When a bundle and its add-ons both apply (for example E3 to E5 and Entra ID P2), the add-ons are shown as alternative options and left out of the totals.

How effort and prices are estimated

• Base hours are for a tenant of up to 50 users or devices. Larger tenants scale them: 51–250 ×1.25, 251–1,000 ×1.6, 1,001–5,000 ×2.2, over 5,000 ×3, rounded up to the next half hour.
• Price = hours × the area rate (or your default rate), rounded to your rounding step. A fixed price replaces the calculation. Managed services are priced per month.
• These are estimates, not quotes: confirm scope and price in your statement of work.

Track projects in the pipeline

1. Open a completed assessment and select the Sales guide tab.

2. Tick the projects you want to pursue and select Add to pipeline. Projects already open for that customer are not added twice.

3. Work them from Projects in the sidebar, or the Projects card on the customer page: change the status (Suggested, Proposed, Quoted, Won, In progress, Delivered, Lost or Dismissed), assign an owner, edit the value, add notes and an expected close date.

When you re-assess the customer, projects that are still only Suggested but no longer triggered are marked No longer needed. Nothing is deleted, and projects you are already working on are never changed.

Create a customer proposal

1. Select one or more projects of the same customer on the Sales guide tab, the Projects page or the customer’s Projects card.

2. Select Create proposal (or Proposal) to preview it.

3. Select Download (.html). Open the file in a browser to print it or save it as PDF.

The proposal carries your branding (with white-label), the project descriptions, deliverables and effort, and prices only when your rate card allows it. It never contains the evidence, talk tracks or your rates.

Troubleshooting