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I think the way Salesforce instructs you to generate an opportunity for each bidder on a project is flawed. There is only one project with many bidders. According to SF each bidder is supposed to be setup as separate account. Then each account can have multiple opportunities (as if they are unique). However, in the example above there is only one project. When i look at my pipeline to see how much business/projects are actually available to go after, the multiple opportunities for one project grossly multiples the actual project value by however many bidders there happens to be.

Doesn't it make sense to create and account for the end-user who has put the project out to bid, then create a relationship whereby each bidder and the quote/opportunity you create is attached to that project. Thus eliminating the gross multiple/duplicates of opportunities?

My pipeline is never accurate and i would rather use a spreadsheet to track my sales potential than a CRM that duplicates opportunities grossly.

Josh

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    seems to me that when out to bid, the opportunity has an Account named OutToBid and the opportunity has child records called Bids, each linked to a bidder Account. The Opportunity.Amount is thus a MAX of Bid.Amount__c (or maybe the MAX of Bid.Amount__c * Bid.Probability). Once the bid is accepted, the Opportunity's Account changes to the winning bidder Account and the Oppo is closed won. The Bid custom object could also be an Opportunity (i.e. a master opportunity for project and children oppos for the Bids).
    – cropredy
    Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 2:00
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    I'm not sure who "Salesforce" is in this context, but the way you are describing things, there should be one opportunity per "project". Underneath the opportunity should be multiple "bidders". If you want to store the data of each bidder in an account object, that should be fine. You would need to create a junction object to relate multiple accounts to an opportunity.
    – willard
    Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 2:03
  • It might be helpful if you could edit to provide more context on where this data model recommendation is coming from.
    – David Reed
    Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 2:37
  • If you're looking at "Sales Cloud," you're might be in the wrong place. This is set up for general B2B sales, not things like bidding. However, there are options available to you. You can build a custom setup, check the AppExchange for bidding tools, or ask Sales about offerings that may be better suited to your needs. I would advise talking to Sales and also having a real conversation with an expert to discuss your needs. SFSE is great for one-size-fits-all solutions, but you sound like you need a personal touch.
    – sfdcfox ♦
    Commented Nov 26, 2020 at 2:55

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Gosh I think you misunderstood how Salesforce wants you to track Opportunities.
Create an Opportunity (ONE! Opportunity). Add all the bidders (Accounts). Make the Opportunity $$ equal to the most likely single solution. That's how it works. That's how Salesforce measures and track your pipeline. That's why it's crazy-talk to think of using a spreadsheet to track your opportunities if you have Salesforce.

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