Stage rules and refusals
move consults the stage rules before it writes anything, and it can decline. A refusal names what the target stage needs and the deal does not have — usually a value, a person, a completed step, or a commercial term nobody has agreed. Nothing is broken when this happens; the rule has just described the next piece of work.
Why a move is checked at all#
A stage is a claim about a deal. Putting a card in a later column asserts that something is true — that the buyer is identified, that a figure has been discussed, that a demonstration happened. If the board lets any card sit anywhere, the columns stop meaning anything and every total computed over them becomes decoration.
So the check runs where the change is made rather than in the screen. The board, the deals sheet in #/data and the Assistant all call the same move, which is why none of them is a way around a rule that stopped one of the others.
The four shapes a restriction takes#
| Shape | What it protects | What a refusal reads like |
|---|---|---|
| Ordering | Stages mean something in sequence | The target is not reachable from where the deal currently is |
| Evidence | A later stage asserts a fact | Something the stage assumes — a value, a buyer, a completed demo — is absent |
| Authority | Commercial terms are a person's decision | The move would assert terms nobody has agreed; a person is asked instead |
| Terminal | A closed outcome is a record, not a mood | A closed deal does not drift back into an open column without being reopened deliberately |
This page describes the shapes rather than printing your workspace's list, because move is the authority and a copy of its rules written down elsewhere is a copy that can drift. What the refusal itself tells you is always specific, and it is the fastest available description of what the deal still needs.
What a refusal is, and is not#
- It is a decision
- Refusals are audited like any other outcome. Months later the decision log answers why a deal sat in one column for a fortnight.
- It is specific
- A rule names the missing thing. A message that only said 'not allowed' would send you hunting, which is the behaviour this design avoids.
- It is not a permission problem
- You almost certainly may move the deal. The deal is not ready to be moved, which is a different sentence.
- It is not silent
- Nothing is written when a move is declined. The card stays where it was and no follow-up is created against a stage the deal never entered.
Working with a refusal#
Read what the refusal names, and check whether it is missing or merely unrecorded.
Result Half of these are facts somebody knows and nobody has written down, which is a thirty-second fix.
Supply it on the record — the value, the buyer, the completed step.
Result The same move now passes, and the deal carries the evidence its column claims.
If the missing thing is a commercial decision, raise the deal for review instead of forcing it.
Result
raise_for_reviewputs it in Needs You with the question attached;clear_reviewtakes it back out when the decision is made.If a rule is wrong for how your business sells, say so rather than routing around it.
Result A rule that everybody overrides is worse than no rule, because the board still claims the meaning the rule was supposed to guarantee.
Where refusals show up#
- On the board, as a card that returns to its column with the reason attached.
- In Needs You, when the deal was raised for review rather than moved.
- In the decision log, always, with the rule that applied.
- To the Assistant, which reports the refusal back to you rather than retrying the move a different way.
The last one matters more than it looks. An agent that quietly tries another route after a rule declines is an agent whose rules are advisory. Here the tool calls the same service you do, gets the same answer, and tells you.
Questions#
Can I turn stage rules off?
They are not a toggle. They are what makes a column mean something, and the same check runs from the board, the grid and the Assistant. If a particular rule does not fit how you sell, that is a conversation about the rule rather than a switch.
Does a refusal count against anything?
No allowance is consumed and no follow-up is created. The only trace is the audit entry, which exists because a refusal is a decision worth being able to explain later.
Why can Connect not simply ask the customer for the missing information?
Often it can, and a follow-up is the right way to do it. What it will not do is treat the answer it hopes to receive as though it had already arrived, which is what advancing the stage would assert.