Xolaren Bangladesh: activity-driven lead tracking for project sales that never run in a straight line
Xolaren Bangladesh is a Dhaka-based engineering and solutions business that sells project-based technical solutions to corporate clients. Brain Station 23 built an activity-driven lead tracking system on Odoo 19 CRM, replacing a fixed pipeline with repeatable activities that each have an owner and a due date.
- Client
- Xolaren Bangladesh
- Country
- Bangladesh
- Platform
- Odoo 19 CRM
- Users
- 8 concurrent users
The project in three lines
The challenge
A non-linear sales process could not be shown as pipeline stages, and repeated work, owners and deadlines went unrecorded.
The solution
An activity-driven model on Odoo 19 CRM, where a lead holds any number of activities with no enforced sequence.
The outcome
Every visit, design revision, OEM price round and offer version is a countable activity with an owner and a deadline.
An engineering business that sells projects, not products
Xolaren Bangladesh is an engineering and solutions business based in Dhaka. It sells project-based technical solutions to corporate clients, and a sale is rarely a single quotation sent after a single conversation. Each opportunity is shaped by the client’s requirements, by site realities and by what the equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can supply and at what price.
The sales team is a small one. The system was set up for 8 concurrent users on a single platform, starting with the Odoo CRM module. For a team of that size, every follow-up that slips and every status update compiled by hand costs real time.
A stage-based pipeline could not show real progress
A standard CRM pipeline assumes that opportunities move forward through a fixed set of stages. Xolaren’s do not. Every opportunity takes its own path. A design revision can trigger a second site visit. A technical clarification can need a fresh OEM price. Negotiation can lead to a third revised offer.
Design, pricing and negotiation steps are repeated, skipped or reordered as customer requirements and OEM dependencies change.
Forcing that reality into a straight line of stages meant the pipeline stopped describing what was actually happening. Four problems followed:
- Repeated work was invisible. Site visits, design revisions, OEM price requests and offers were not recorded as separate, countable instances, so nobody could say how many rounds a project had really taken.
- Nobody owned the next step. Activities had no named owner and no due date, so follow-through depended on individual memory.
- Overdue work stayed hidden. It was not visible without manual follow-up, and team leads compiled status updates by hand.
- Offers could not be traced. Offers and their revisions had no consistent reference to trace a quotation back to a client, project and version.
Assess every requirement against Odoo, then change only what must change
Brain Station 23 did not start from a blank page or from a long development plan. The team assessed each business requirement against what Odoo CRM already offers, and sorted it into one of three groups.
Native Odoo
Met by the standard activity model, which already supports owners, due dates and a timeline on every lead.
Configuration
Met by setting Odoo up: activity types, lead statuses and access rights for team and personal views.
Customization
Used only where Odoo could not meet the need: project category, project scope and an editable quotation number.
Most requirements landed in the first two groups. Only a small number needed customization. That keeps the system close to standard Odoo, which makes it simpler for the business to run and to maintain.
Activities, not stages, on Odoo 19 CRM
The core idea is simple. A lead is a container, and the work on that lead is a collection of activities. There is no enforced sequence. A lead can hold any number of activities, and every type in the master list, except Lead Initiation, can be repeated and carried out in any order.
Capturing a lead
A lead is created in a few clicks with the company, project category, project scope and lead status. Project category and project scope are the two fields added through customization, because they describe the kind of project in the way Xolaren’s team talks about it.
One master list of activity types
All the work the team does is defined once, in a single master list of ten activity types.
Lead Initiation Once per lead
Opens the lead. It is the only type that is not repeated.
Client Engagement & Visits
Client meetings and site visits, as many as the project needs.
Engineering & Design
Design work, including each revision as its own activity.
Get OEM Price
Each request for a manufacturer price, so repeated rounds are counted.
Project Price
Pricing the project itself.
Get Internal Approvals
Approvals needed inside the business before an offer goes out.
Set Quotation Number
Gives the offer its reference, which stays editable at any stage.
Send Quotation
Each offer version that goes to the client.
Follow-up
Chasing the client or the next step.
Work order received
The close of the story: the client has awarded the work.
An owner and a due date on everything
Each activity is assigned to a named person and given a due date. Odoo compares the due date with the completion date, flags overdue work and surfaces the oldest overdue activity, so nobody has to chase it manually.
Lead status that matches the business
Because progress is now carried by activities, the lead status can stay simple. Five values cover it:
- Open
- Won
- Awarded to other
- Paused
- Cancelled
The right view for the right person
Team leads can filter and sort activities by person and date range, which replaces the status updates they used to compile by hand. Each salesperson sees their own assigned work, with overdue items first. Access rights control who sees what.
Configured first, customized where needed. Activity types, lead statuses and access-controlled team views are configuration, so the business can change its own activity list without development.
How one opportunity can unfold
This illustrative example uses the kind of path the challenge describes. It shows why a fixed pipeline struggled and how the activity model handles the same story.
-
The lead is opened
A Lead Initiation activity records the company, project category, project scope and an Open status.
-
The client is visited
A Client Engagement & Visits activity is assigned to a named salesperson with a due date.
-
Design starts, then changes
An Engineering & Design activity is created. When the design is revised, a new activity is added rather than the old one being overwritten, so both are on the record.
-
The revision triggers a second visit
Another Client Engagement & Visits activity is added. A pipeline stage would have forced the lead backwards or left the visit unrecorded.
-
A fresh OEM price is needed
A technical clarification needs a new manufacturer price, so a Get OEM Price activity is added again, with its own owner and due date.
-
The offer goes out, and comes back for revision
Internal approvals are obtained, a quotation number is set and the offer is sent. After negotiation, a third revised offer is sent as a new activity with its own quotation number.
-
The work order arrives
A Work order received activity closes the story, and the lead is marked Won. The whole path stays in a chronological timeline on the lead.
Work that is owned, dated and visible
- 10Activity types in one master list
- 5Lead status values
- 8Concurrent users on one platform
- 1Odoo module to start: CRM
- Complete history: every activity stays in a chronological timeline on the lead, from the first call to the work order.
- Accountability and deadlines: each activity has a named owner and a due date. Odoo compares it with the completion date, flags overdue work and surfaces the oldest overdue activity.
- Team and personal visibility: team leads filter and sort activities by person and date range, and each salesperson sees assigned work with overdue items first.
- Traceable offers: each offer version is issued with its quotation number, which stays editable at any stage.
- Repeated work that counts: every visit, design revision, OEM price round and offer version is a separate, countable activity.
- A model the business controls: the activity list is configuration, so Xolaren can change it without development.
A first phase built to grow
The project starts with one Odoo module, CRM, which keeps the first phase focused. Automatic quotation reference generation and other items that need heavier development were reviewed and are held for a later phase. For now, the quotation number is editable and tied to each offer version, which covers the traceability need without extra development.
Because the system sits on standard Odoo, other modules can be added around it as the business needs them.
Xolaren Bangladesh: activity-driven lead tracking for project sales that never run in a straight line
Xolaren Bangladesh is a Dhaka-based engineering and solutions business that sells project-based technical solutions to corporate clients. Brain Station 23 built an activity-driven lead tracking system on Odoo 19 CRM, replacing a fixed pipeline with repeatable activities that each have an owner and a due date.
- Client
- Xolaren Bangladesh
- Country
- Bangladesh
- Platform
- Odoo 19 CRM
- Users
- 8 concurrent users
The project in three lines
The challenge
A non-linear sales process could not be shown as pipeline stages, and repeated work, owners and deadlines went unrecorded.
The solution
An activity-driven model on Odoo 19 CRM, where a lead holds any number of activities with no enforced sequence.
The outcome
Every visit, design revision, OEM price round and offer version is a countable activity with an owner and a deadline.
An engineering business that sells projects, not products
Xolaren Bangladesh is an engineering and solutions business based in Dhaka. It sells project-based technical solutions to corporate clients, and a sale is rarely a single quotation sent after a single conversation. Each opportunity is shaped by the client’s requirements, by site realities and by what the equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can supply and at what price.
The sales team is a small one. The system was set up for 8 concurrent users on a single platform, starting with the Odoo CRM module. For a team of that size, every follow-up that slips and every status update compiled by hand costs real time.
A stage-based pipeline could not show real progress
A standard CRM pipeline assumes that opportunities move forward through a fixed set of stages. Xolaren’s do not. Every opportunity takes its own path. A design revision can trigger a second site visit. A technical clarification can need a fresh OEM price. Negotiation can lead to a third revised offer.
Design, pricing and negotiation steps are repeated, skipped or reordered as customer requirements and OEM dependencies change.
Forcing that reality into a straight line of stages meant the pipeline stopped describing what was actually happening. Four problems followed:
- Repeated work was invisible. Site visits, design revisions, OEM price requests and offers were not recorded as separate, countable instances, so nobody could say how many rounds a project had really taken.
- Nobody owned the next step. Activities had no named owner and no due date, so follow-through depended on individual memory.
- Overdue work stayed hidden. It was not visible without manual follow-up, and team leads compiled status updates by hand.
- Offers could not be traced. Offers and their revisions had no consistent reference to trace a quotation back to a client, project and version.
Assess every requirement against Odoo, then change only what must change
Brain Station 23 did not start from a blank page or from a long development plan. The team assessed each business requirement against what Odoo CRM already offers, and sorted it into one of three groups.
Native Odoo
Met by the standard activity model, which already supports owners, due dates and a timeline on every lead.
Configuration
Met by setting Odoo up: activity types, lead statuses and access rights for team and personal views.
Customization
Used only where Odoo could not meet the need: project category, project scope and an editable quotation number.
Most requirements landed in the first two groups. Only a small number needed customization. That keeps the system close to standard Odoo, which makes it simpler for the business to run and to maintain.
Activities, not stages, on Odoo 19 CRM
The core idea is simple. A lead is a container, and the work on that lead is a collection of activities. There is no enforced sequence. A lead can hold any number of activities, and every type in the master list, except Lead Initiation, can be repeated and carried out in any order.
Capturing a lead
A lead is created in a few clicks with the company, project category, project scope and lead status. Project category and project scope are the two fields added through customization, because they describe the kind of project in the way Xolaren’s team talks about it.
One master list of activity types
All the work the team does is defined once, in a single master list of ten activity types.
Lead Initiation Once per lead
Opens the lead. It is the only type that is not repeated.
Client Engagement & Visits
Client meetings and site visits, as many as the project needs.
Engineering & Design
Design work, including each revision as its own activity.
Get OEM Price
Each request for a manufacturer price, so repeated rounds are counted.
Project Price
Pricing the project itself.
Get Internal Approvals
Approvals needed inside the business before an offer goes out.
Set Quotation Number
Gives the offer its reference, which stays editable at any stage.
Send Quotation
Each offer version that goes to the client.
Follow-up
Chasing the client or the next step.
Work order received
The close of the story: the client has awarded the work.
An owner and a due date on everything
Each activity is assigned to a named person and given a due date. Odoo compares the due date with the completion date, flags overdue work and surfaces the oldest overdue activity, so nobody has to chase it manually.
Lead status that matches the business
Because progress is now carried by activities, the lead status can stay simple. Five values cover it:
- Open
- Won
- Awarded to other
- Paused
- Cancelled
The right view for the right person
Team leads can filter and sort activities by person and date range, which replaces the status updates they used to compile by hand. Each salesperson sees their own assigned work, with overdue items first. Access rights control who sees what.
Configured first, customized where needed. Activity types, lead statuses and access-controlled team views are configuration, so the business can change its own activity list without development.
How one opportunity can unfold
This illustrative example uses the kind of path the challenge describes. It shows why a fixed pipeline struggled and how the activity model handles the same story.
-
The lead is opened
A Lead Initiation activity records the company, project category, project scope and an Open status.
-
The client is visited
A Client Engagement & Visits activity is assigned to a named salesperson with a due date.
-
Design starts, then changes
An Engineering & Design activity is created. When the design is revised, a new activity is added rather than the old one being overwritten, so both are on the record.
-
The revision triggers a second visit
Another Client Engagement & Visits activity is added. A pipeline stage would have forced the lead backwards or left the visit unrecorded.
-
A fresh OEM price is needed
A technical clarification needs a new manufacturer price, so a Get OEM Price activity is added again, with its own owner and due date.
-
The offer goes out, and comes back for revision
Internal approvals are obtained, a quotation number is set and the offer is sent. After negotiation, a third revised offer is sent as a new activity with its own quotation number.
-
The work order arrives
A Work order received activity closes the story, and the lead is marked Won. The whole path stays in a chronological timeline on the lead.
Work that is owned, dated and visible
- 10Activity types in one master list
- 5Lead status values
- 8Concurrent users on one platform
- 1Odoo module to start: CRM
- Complete history: every activity stays in a chronological timeline on the lead, from the first call to the work order.
- Accountability and deadlines: each activity has a named owner and a due date. Odoo compares it with the completion date, flags overdue work and surfaces the oldest overdue activity.
- Team and personal visibility: team leads filter and sort activities by person and date range, and each salesperson sees assigned work with overdue items first.
- Traceable offers: each offer version is issued with its quotation number, which stays editable at any stage.
- Repeated work that counts: every visit, design revision, OEM price round and offer version is a separate, countable activity.
- A model the business controls: the activity list is configuration, so Xolaren can change it without development.
A first phase built to grow
The project starts with one Odoo module, CRM, which keeps the first phase focused. Automatic quotation reference generation and other items that need heavier development were reviewed and are held for a later phase. For now, the quotation number is editable and tied to each offer version, which covers the traceability need without extra development.
Because the system sits on standard Odoo, other modules can be added around it as the business needs them.