Keep your pipeline accurate and up to date — without manual follow-up. Pipeline Assistant monitors your Cinode projects and notifies each salesperson privately in Microsoft Teams when a deal needs attention.
Pipeline Assistant monitors your Cinode projects and lets each salesperson know — privately, in Microsoft Teams — whenever a deal is missing required information or needs attention. No more manual pipeline reviews, no more chasing. Each user gets their own private Teams channel, and the integration keeps it up to date for them.
💡 Looking for shared team notifications about contacts, roles, or bench? That's a separate integration called Microsoft Teams Notifications. See that article.
Overview
Pipeline Assistant connects Cinode’s sales pipeline with Microsoft Teams, giving your team real-time guidance on pipeline hygiene.
When a project moves to a new stage, the user who made the update instantly receives a private Teams message listing any missing or invalid fields required for that stage.
The integration can also:
Send weekly summary reports
Highlight upcoming close dates
Automatically move stale projects between stages
This integration is an add-on. Contact your Customer Success Manager or Cinode Support to activate it.
🔒 Required Cinode permissions: Partner Manager, Manager, Recruiter, or Admin
💡 All validation rules are configurable. Contact us if you need additional rules.
Prerequisites
To use Pipeline Assistant, you need:
A Cinode account with API access (API key)
A Microsoft Teams connection configured via the integration platform
Access to the Integration Portal (provided after activation)
Admin rights to configure integrations in Cinode
Key benefits
✅ Keeps pipeline data accurate without manual reviews
🔔 Sends clear, personalised alerts in Teams
📊 Provides weekly pipeline health checks
⚙️ Creates and manages private Teams channels automatically
🔗 Delivers structured notifications with direct links to Cinode
What Pipeline Assistant does
Real-time project validation
When a project is updated, Pipeline Assistant checks whether the new stage has required field rules.
If any required fields are missing or invalid, an Adaptive Card is sent to the private Teams channel of the user who made the update.
Notifications are always sent to personal channels — never shared ones.
Weekly pipeline summaries
On a configurable schedule, each salesperson receives a summary of all their projects with validation issues. This ensures incomplete deals are reviewed regularly.
Upcoming close date alerts
A weekly notification highlights projects with an estimated close date within the next 7 days, helping prioritise follow-ups.
Automated stage progression
Projects that remain too long in a stage can be moved automatically to another stage after a defined number of days.
Who receives notifications
Recipient:
Real-time: the user who updated the project
Scheduled flows: the project owner
Where:
A private Teams channel created automatically for each user (e.g.cin-john-smith)Format:
Adaptive Cards listing missing or invalid fields, with direct links to the project
Matching between Cinode and Teams users is based on email. If no match is found, no notification is sent.
Notification format
Notifications are sent as Adaptive Cards and typically include:
Project name and customer
Pipeline stage
List of missing or invalid fields
Weekly summaries group all projects with issues into one overview per user.
Available validation rules
Rule | What it checks |
Deal Value | Project has an estimated value greater than zero |
Close Date | Project has a future estimated close date |
Probability | Project has a numeric probability |
Role Created | At least one role exists |
Role Assigned | At least one role has an assigned person |
Role Preliminary Booked | At least one role is preliminarily booked |
Role Rate | A role has a rate set |
Owner Team | Project has an owner team |
Customer Corporate Identity | Customer has an organisation number |
Set Project Status To Won | Marks project as Won at a defined stage |
All failing fields are included in a single notification.
How rules are configured
Rules are managed in the Integration Portal by a Cinode admin.
Pipeline Stage → Rules mapping
Defines required fields per stage.
One row = one rule
Multiple rows = multiple required fields for a stage
Move to Stage After N Days
Defines automatic stage transitions:
From Stage – current stage
To Stage – target stage
Number of Days – time before moving
Runs based on the Automations schedule.
How private Teams channels work
A private channel is created the first time a user receives a notification
Naming:
[prefix]-[user-name](e.g.cin-john-smith)The user is added automatically
Existing channels are reused
🟦 Changing the Channel Name Prefix only affects new channels.
Setting up Pipeline Assistant
Pipeline Assistant has three configuration pages. All settings are configured at instance level by a Cinode admin.
Step 1 — Open the Integration Portal
Log in to flows.cinode.com. You'll get access by reaching out to your CSM.
Go to Marketplace
Select Pipeline Assistant
Click Configure
Step 2 — Configuration page
Link your connections:
Cinode Connection — add a Static Token from Cinode. See Cinode REST API for how to create one.
(The Microsoft Teams Connection is configured here too if not already shared across integrations.)
Step 3 — Teams Settings
Select the Teams team where private notification channels will be created for each user.
Step 4 — Cinode page
Configure the integration behaviour:
Set any schedule to Never to disable it.
Setting | Description |
Rules | Pipeline stage validation rules and auto-move rules. See "How rules are configured" above. |
Weekly Projects Check | Cron schedule for the weekly pipeline summary. Set to Never to disable. |
Weekly Upcoming Period Notification | Cron schedule for close date alerts for projects closing within the next 7 days. Set to Never to disable. |
Channel Name Prefix | Prefix used when naming private Teams channels, for example |
Automations | Schedule for automatic stage movement rules. |
Step 5 — Verify and test
Save and publish the configuration.
Update a project in Cinode so it enters a stage with configured rules, while leaving a required field empty.
Confirm the Adaptive Card arrives in your private Pipeline Assistant channel in Teams.
Flows overview
Flow | Trigger | What it does |
ProjectUpdated | Project saved | Validates project and sends notification |
Find Or Create Channel | Internal | Creates or retrieves private channel |
ScheduledSummary | Schedule | Triggers weekly summaries |
ScheduledSummaryBySalesResp | Internal | Sends summary per user |
ScheduledNextWeekReport | Schedule | Triggers close date alerts |
ScheduledNextWeekReportBySalesResp | Internal | Sends upcoming deals |
InvokeAutomations | Schedule | Moves projects based on rules |
Troubleshooting
Issue | Possible cause | Solution |
No notifications in Teams | User's Cinode email doesn't match their Microsoft 365 email | Align email addresses in Cinode and Microsoft 365 |
No notifications for a specific user | User isn't a member of the configured Teams team | Add the user to the Teams team |
Wrong Teams user matched | Email mismatch between Cinode and Microsoft 365 | Correct the email in Cinode |
Duplicate channels created | Channel Name Prefix not unique across runs | Adjust the Channel Name Prefix |
Notifications not triggering after a stage move | The target stage has no rules configured | Add validation rules to that stage under Rules |
Auto-move runs but no notification follows | Auto-move itself doesn't notify — only rule violations do | Expected behaviour. If the target stage has rules, the next update will trigger a notification. |
Wrong timezone for scheduled runs | No timezone set in configuration | Set the |
Frequently asked questions
Can I require multiple fields at one stage?
Yes. Add one row per field. All failures appear in one notification.
What if the Teams user can’t be found?
The notification is skipped silently.
Will changing the prefix delete channels?
No. Existing channels remain. New ones use the new prefix.
Can I disable scheduled flows?
Yes. Set them to Never.
Does auto-move send notifications?
No. But if the target stage has rules, a notification may trigger after the move.
Why was the wrong user matched?
Matching is based on email. Ensure consistency between Cinode and Microsoft 365.
Need help?
Contact your Customer Success Manager or email support@cinode.com.