What the Leads board is
In Pipeline (top menu) you have your sales pipeline: a board with your contacts arranged by the stage they are in. Each card is a contact (a lead) and each column is a stage, for example "Interested", "Showing scheduled" or "Closed". Drag a card to move it to another column and click it to open the contact.
Cards show what you already know about the lead (if you use lead qualification) and a mark when it is qualified.
Getting started: the Standard board
You don't have to set anything up: the first time you open Leads, the board is created automatically with the Standard template, designed for any business.
- Wrote to us: the contact wrote to you first (a customer reaching out).
- Replied: you wrote to them first (a campaign, a WhatsApp template) and they answered.
MuseRelay picks between the two by looking at who sent the first message. If you prefer another template, go to Management → Sales pipeline → “Board columns” to change it whenever you like: the columns change, but no contact loses theirs (columns with contacts are kept). You can rename the columns afterwards.
| Template | Columns |
|---|---|
| Standard (any business) | Wrote to us · Replied · Interested · Appointment / Meeting · On hold · Won · Discarded |
| Generic | New · Wrote to us · Contacted · Replied · Interested · On hold · Won · Discarded |
| Real estate | New lead · Wrote to us · Replied · Interested · Qualified · Showing scheduled · Offer · On hold · Closed · Lost |
| B2B sales | Lead · Qualified · Proposal · Negotiation · On hold · Won · Lost |
| Cold outreach | Wrote to us · Sent · No reply · Replied · Interested · Meeting · On hold · Converted · Discarded · Re-engage |
| Customer support | New · In progress · Waiting for customer · On hold · Resolved · Closed |
The AI moves cards (if you want)
The AI reads each conversation's messages and knows which stage the lead is at. In Management → Sales pipeline you choose how it behaves:
- Move by itself (I correct): it moves the card to the right column. You can correct it by dragging.
- Suggest (I confirm): it leaves a suggestion on the card and you accept or dismiss it.
- Disabled: only you move cards.
The AI never moves a card back to an earlier stage.
Who goes on the board
Everyone who writes to you goes on the board as a lead. The “Wrote to us” column means the contact has written to you, not that you have replied to them. If you wrote to them first and they answer, they go to “Replied”. The system sets this stage by itself: in the Contacts list it shows with a border, a funnel and “Leads:” in front, so you don't confuse it with your labels. Spam, phishing, newsletters and automatic notifications don't go on the board.
Emails that do not come from potential customers are left out: phishing or suspicious emails, newsletters and mailing lists, bounces, “no-reply” senders and automatic notifications from platforms. That way the board only has real people.
Customising the columns
In Management → Sales pipeline, under Pipeline columns, you adapt the board to the way you sell:
- Rename, recolour and reorder by dragging: on every plan.
- Add and delete columns (from the Basic plan). If you delete a column with contacts, you choose which column they move to; nobody leaves the board.
- Column type: normal, Won, Lost or Parked (leads paused on purpose: they never alert or move on their own).
- For the AI: what the column means. The AI places each lead by meaning, not by name. A column of your own, such as "Deposit", can be Manual only (the AI never puts anyone there) or act as Appointment / meeting. Each meaning can only be in one column.
- Alert (days): we notify you when a lead has had no news for that many days in that column. Empty = the usual (Interested and Meeting alert after 3 days); 0 = no alert.
Under Templates you change all columns at once (Real estate, Sales, Outreach, Support… from the Basic plan) and you can save your pipeline as a template to reuse it in another workspace. When you switch templates, no contact loses their column.
Several pipelines
If you sell different things, create a pipeline for each in Management → Sales pipeline → New pipeline. For example, a real estate agency with Buying, Renting and Owner listings. Each pipeline has its own columns, alerts and template; the AI mode, channels and qualification are shared by all.
- A lead can be in several pipelines at once: for example, in "Buying: Viewing" and in "Renting: Wrote to us". From their card, with + Other pipeline, you add them to another one; their contact card shows their column in each.
- On the board you choose which pipeline to see with the selector at the top.
- One of them is the main pipeline. You can change it and delete the others: when you delete a pipeline, its leads leave it but stay in Contacts and in their other pipelines.
- The Free plan includes 1 pipeline, Basic 3, Pro 10, and Business and Enterprise unlimited.
How leads come in
With several pipelines, when someone writes for the first time we decide which one they go to, in this order:
- Your rules, in the order you choose: "if it comes from this channel / this website chatbot / this AI agent → to this pipeline". For example: "Sell your flat chatbot → Owner listings".
- If none matches and you turn it on, the AI reads their first message and each pipeline's Who it is for sentence ("People looking for a flat to rent") and picks one.
- Otherwise, or if the AI is unsure, the main pipeline.
Afterwards you can always move them by hand or add them to another pipeline.
Which channels go on the board
In Management → Sales pipeline (or with the board's Settings button) you choose which channels fill it:
- By type: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, Email, SMS and Website chat. By default they are all on except Email.
- Channel by channel: under each type you'll see your channels. You can make exceptions, for example “Email off, except this mailbox” or “WhatsApp on, except this number”.
Why is Email off by default? A mailbox receives a lot of mail that isn't from customers (notices, invoices, newsletters, suppliers) and would fill the board with noise. If you use email to win customers, turn it on — just the sales mailbox if you prefer.
Excluding a channel deletes nothing: its contacts stop showing on the board and its new messages don't come in. Include it again and they reappear in the column where they were.
Which columns notify you
The board helps you make sure no lead goes cold:
- "Hot" columns (Interested and Meeting/Showing): if a lead has had no activity for 3 days, the workspace owner gets the "Lead going cold" notification. There is one notification per lead, kept up to date.
- "Cold" columns (New, Contacted, Sent, No reply): if your board has a "Re-engage" column, leads with no reply after 7 days move there on their own so you can follow up.
- The other columns never notify or move anything.
At the bottom of the board a note explains, using your board's own columns, which ones notify you, after how many days and how you get it, with a link to your notification preferences.
The "On hold" column
Use it for leads you want to pause on purpose (for example, "I'm interested, but in six months") without marking them as lost. It never notifies or moves on its own: the lead stays there until you move it.
Notifications
Board notifications (lead going cold, new lead and qualified lead) arrive in the bell and, if you turn it on, by email. Choose in your notification preferences.