Hi,
you should write your rules in a workflow.
Define your sales stages (or just go ahead and use one of the many methodologies you are fond of. Let's say Qualify, Solution, Proposal, Negotiation, Close.
Use a field to hold this information. Either let the user change it accordingly to his/her feeling, or define a specific number of things that need to happen before the workflow carries you in the next stage (for instance, have a certain number of requisites
for each phase, and the workflow only moves forward when all of them are checked).
Either you let a workflow drive the process, or the user change it manually. In either case, every advance in the process should represent a change also in probability, in order to get your pipeline correct. sometimes we combine the sales process phase,
with some customer rating, in order to obtain probability: let's say, if you present a proposal to a customer you already have, maybe your probability is high, but the same proposal to a brand new customer without any relation to you, may represent a lower
probability.
Let your workflows drive your logic. There is a very good accelerator if you just need to evaluate, that you can download I think from codeplex.
Sérgio
Romeo
