How do I move prospects to a CRM stage in a campaign?

Last updated: September 9, 2026
Applies to: Owner / Manager / Staff
PLUS Feature: Yes
Plan: Opus1 Plus (Campaigns + Prospects Funnel & Management)

Why you would use this
What an ongoing campaign is
What this action is and is not
Before you start
Add and configure the step
How the step runs
When the move is skipped
What happens on a successful move
Example sequence
Permissions
Troubleshooting
FAQ
Related Articles

Why you would use this

Most pipelines stall in the gap between "the sequence finished" and "someone remembered to move the card." A prospect sits in Prospect (trial) long after the trial happened, keeps receiving trial messaging, and never enters the follow-up sequence that would have converted them.

Move prospect to stage closes that gap by having the campaign hand the prospect off on its own:

Fewer prospects lost to inactivity. The pipeline keeps moving even when the team is busy teaching.
Messaging that matches reality. Someone who has finished a trial sequence stops getting trial content and starts getting post-trial content.
Cleaner reporting. Board columns reflect where prospects actually are, so Prospects Conversion numbers and follow-up filters stay meaningful.
Less manual board work. Staff spend their time on calls rather than dragging cards between columns.
A consistent process. Every prospect reaching the same point in a sequence is handled the same way, whoever owns the record.

What an ongoing campaign is

Opus1 has two kinds of campaign, and this action only exists in one of them.

Campaign type	What it does	Stage sequences?
One-time	Sends a single email or SMS to an audience at a scheduled time. Covered in How do I create an email campaign?	No
Ongoing	Enrolls anyone matching its audience criteria and walks them through a sequence of stages over days or weeks	Yes

An ongoing campaign's sequence is built from stages. Message stages send an email or SMS, Delay stages wait a set number of days, and Trigger stages perform an action on the prospect's record rather than sending anything.

Move prospect to stage is one of the actions a Trigger stage can perform. Until now the Trigger stage offered only Mark client as lost; this is a second option in the same dropdown.

Location: Campaigns → open an ongoing campaign → Stages tab → Add stage

What this action is and is not

Not included	Detail
A new stage type	You still add a Trigger stage. The stage type list is unchanged
A change to Mark client as lost	That action behaves exactly as it does today
New CRM statuses	You pick from statuses already configured for your business. This action does not create stages
A report of moves	There is no dashboard counting moved, skipped, or failed prospects. Outcomes appear in each prospect's activity history and on the Prospect Board
A manual "move now" button	This is a workflow step. Staff moving prospects by hand use the Prospect Board as usual

Before you start

Requirement	Details
Opus1 Plus	CRM must be enabled. Without Plus there are no CRM statuses to move prospects into
Campaigns enabled	And the campaign must be ongoing. One-time email or SMS blasts have no stage sequence
Destination status exists	The status has to be in Business settings → General → CRM → Client statuses already. Only the Owner can add one
Campaign is editable	Stages can only be added or changed while the campaign is Draft or Inactive. Activate it once the sequence is complete
Staff access	Owner, Manager, and Staff can build campaigns. Limited Staff cannot

Decide the destination before you build the step. The question to answer is where a prospect should sit once this sequence has run its course without converting them — usually the next follow-up stage, sometimes a sleep stage.

Add and configure the step

Go to Campaigns and open the ongoing campaign you want to edit. Confirm it is Draft or Inactive.
Open the Stages tab.
Click Add stage.
Set Stage type to Trigger.
Open Trigger options and select Move prospect to stage.
Choose the destination from the client status dropdown — any status in your pipeline, for example Prospect (trial follow up).
Check the Name field. Opus1 fills in a name from the action you chose; replace it with something clearer for your team, such as Hand off to post-trial follow-up
Click Create.
Drag the step to the position you want, then activate the campaign when the whole sequence is ready.

Where to place it. The step can sit anywhere in the sequence, and it works well directly after a Delay stage — the delay gives the prospect time to respond to your last message before the campaign hands them off.

Treat it as the exit point. Because a successful move stops the campaign for that prospect, any stages placed after this step will not run for anyone who gets moved. Put anything that must happen earlier in the sequence.

Editing is blocked while a campaign is active. To change the step later, set the campaign to Inactive, make the edit, and activate it again.

How the step runs

Automatically. Once the campaign is active, Opus1 processes the sequence for each enrolled prospect on its normal schedule, and the move happens when a prospect reaches that step. Nobody needs to be signed in or watching the board.

There is no manual trigger for this action. Staff can still move prospects by hand whenever they want, using the tools they already have:

How a prospect moves stage	Trigger	Who does it
Move prospect to stage in a campaign	Automatic, when the sequence reaches the step	Opus1 runs it
Drag-and-drop on the Prospect Board	Manual	Owner, Manager, Staff
Status change in the detail panel or client form	Manual	Owner, Manager, Staff
Reserved member statuses from the subscription lifecycle	Automatic	Opus1 runs it

Manual moves take priority in practice. If a staff member has already moved the prospect, the campaign step recognizes it and stands down — a person looking at the family beats a sequence written last month.

When the move is skipped

Sequences run over days or weeks, so a prospect's situation often changes between entering the campaign and reaching this step. Immediately before performing the move, Opus1 re-checks that the prospect is still an active participant. If they are not, the step is skipped and the record is left exactly as it is.

Condition	Why it is skipped
Enrolled in a class or lesson	They have converted, so the campaign's assumptions no longer hold
Changed CRM stage since entering the campaign	Someone has already decided where they belong
Exited the campaign	They no longer match the audience criteria
Been rescheduled	Their next appointment moved, so the original follow-up timing is stale
Been manually reassigned	A staff member is actively handling the record
Become a Member	They are a client now, not a prospect
Campaign participation paused	Someone deliberately put their sequence on hold

A skipped prospect keeps their current status, staff assignment, tags, and follow-up date. Nothing is overwritten, and no message is sent on their behalf.

A skip is silent — it writes nothing to the record. If a prospect stayed put and you want to know why, check their campaign section for participation status and their activity history for what changed.

What happens on a successful move

Three things happen together:

The prospect moves to the selected status. On the Prospect Board the card leaves its old column and appears in the destination column at the next board load — the same change a staff member would have made by dragging it.
The campaign stops for that prospect. They receive no further steps from the sequence that moved them. Other prospects in the campaign are unaffected and the campaign keeps running.
An entry is written to the prospect's activity history. It names the campaign and the step responsible, so anyone reviewing the record can see the change came from a campaign rather than a person. Open Client History on the prospect to read it — see PLUS: How do I find a client's history?.

The activity entry names no staff member, which is expected for an automated step.

If another campaign targets the destination status, the prospect can be picked up by it like anyone else entering that status — with one exception.

Prospects are not entered into the same campaign twice. Some prospects travel through the same part of your pipeline more than once, such as someone who books a second trial months later. Opus1 checks whether the prospect has already participated in the destination campaign, and skips re-entry if so. They still move to the selected status; only the campaign re-entry is skipped, quietly. There is no report listing prospects skipped this way, so check the record's campaign section if you are chasing a specific case.

Example sequence

A studio wants prospects who finished a trial sequence to land in post-trial follow-up automatically, three days after the last message.

Campaign: ongoing, targeting the Prospect (trial) status.

Step	Stage type	Configuration
1	Email / SMS	"How was your trial lesson?"
2	Delay	3 days
3	Email / SMS	"Ready to pick a weekly time?"
4	Delay	3 days
5	Trigger	Move prospect to stage → Prospect (trial follow up)

What the team sees:

A prospect who ignores both messages is moved to Prospect (trial follow up) on day six, and the post-trial campaign takes over. Their activity history shows which campaign and step moved them.
A prospect who enrolls on day two becomes a Member through the normal subscription flow. When the sequence reaches step 5 the move is skipped and nothing about their record changes.
A prospect a staff member drags to Prospect (sleep) on day four is also skipped, because their stage changed after they entered the campaign.

Your status names will match whatever your Owner configured — Trial Attended and post-Trial Follow-Up are as valid as the Opus1 defaults.

Permissions

Action	Owner	Manager	Staff	Limited Staff
View the campaign list	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Add a Trigger stage to a sequence	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Select Move prospect to stage and its destination	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Activate, pause, or deactivate a campaign	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Pause campaign participation for one prospect	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Add or rename CRM client statuses	Yes	No	No	No
View the resulting activity history entry	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Enable Opus1 Plus	Yes	No	No	No

Only the Owner can add, rename, or reorder the client statuses that appear in the destination dropdown, so set the pipeline up first. Managers and Staff can build the sequence and pick any existing status, but cannot create a new one for it.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Likely cause	What to do
Move prospect to stage is not in Trigger options	The campaign is one-time, or campaigns and Plus are not fully enabled	Confirm you are editing an ongoing campaign and that Opus1 Plus is active
The dropdown is greyed out and nothing saves	The campaign is active	Set it to Inactive, edit the stage, then activate again
The status you want is missing from the dropdown	It does not exist in your pipeline	Ask your Owner to add it under Business settings → General → CRM → Client statuses
A prospect stayed in their original column	A safeguard skipped the move	Check the prospect's campaign section for participation status, and their activity history for what changed
Steps after the Trigger never ran	Expected — a successful move stops the campaign for that prospect	Move anything that must run to an earlier point in the sequence
The prospect moved but got none of the destination campaign's messages	They had already participated in that campaign, so re-entry was skipped	Review their campaign history. Use a different destination status or a separate campaign if they need a fresh sequence

FAQ

Does this replace Mark client as lost? No. Mark client as lost is unchanged and still in the same dropdown. Move prospect to stage is an additional option you can use instead of it, or in a different sequence.

Will this send any email or SMS? Not by itself. It only changes the prospect's stage in Opus1. Messages come from Email / SMS stages, including any in the campaign that picks the prospect up after the move.

What happens to the prospect's tags, assigned staff, and follow-up date? They are untouched. Only the client status changes, and the campaign stops for that prospect.

How do I know whether a prospect was moved or skipped? Check their activity history. A move writes an entry naming the campaign and step; a skip writes nothing and leaves the record unchanged. Opus1 has no summary report of moved and skipped prospects.

Can I point this at a member status such as Member? The dropdown lists the statuses configured for your business, but reserved member statuses are normally applied by the subscription lifecycle when someone enrolls. Pointing a campaign at them is not recommended — let enrollment handle that transition.

The pipeline this feeds

How do I use the Prospect Board? — how prospects get on the board, and how to work, convert, or close them
Follow-Up Date Tags on the Prospect Board — how campaign action tags and follow-up tags appear on cards
How do I automatically assign my staff to prospects in my pipeline?
PLUS: How do I find a client's history? — reading the activity entry a move creates

Campaigns

How do I create an email campaign? — one-time campaigns
Email campaigns: verify your domain
How do I enable automated follow-up emails?

Measuring it

Prospect Conversion Stats: Exporting Contact Details to CSV — how prospects move from inquiry to won or lost