The CRM workspace
The CRM is part of your Workspace. Open Workspace from the account menu, then choose CRM. It is available to active members of an agency on PlaceNest; if you are not an active member of an agency yet, the CRM tells you so and shows nothing else.
The CRM page shows your agency's leads (with a status filter), enquiries you received that can become leads, your agency's contacts (with a search) and, if your role allows it, a form to add a contact. If you belong to more than one agency, choose the agency at the top of the page — each agency's CRM is completely separate.
Contacts
A contact is a person or company your agency deals with. Give a name and, optionally, an e-mail address and a phone number, and tick the relationship that applies — for example prospective tenant, tenant, applicant, landlord, owner, buyer, seller, prospect or supplier. A contact can have more than one relationship.
Open a contact to see their details, their leads and their activity, to edit them, add a note, start a lead or archive the contact. An archived contact is kept with its history but can no longer be changed.
- PlaceNest member
- When a lead is created from an enquiry someone sent you through PlaceNest, their contact is linked to their PlaceNest account. That person's e-mail address and phone number are not copied into the contact.
- Not linked
- A contact your agency added by hand. PlaceNest never links a contact to an account just because the name or e-mail address looks the same.
Important: Record only details the person has given your agency. A contact's relationship (for example "owner" or "landlord") is your agency's own note — it never gives anyone authority over a property, and PlaceNest does not check it.
Leads, lead types and stages
A lead is one opportunity with one contact. You can create a lead from a contact's page, or turn an enquiry you received into a lead with "Create lead" under "Enquiries you received". The same enquiry can only become one lead.
Every lead has a lead type: what the opportunity is. The type is separate from the contact's relationship. One person can be an existing landlord who also wants to sell one property and buy another, so they can have several leads of different types. When you create a lead you choose its type. A lead created from an enquiry takes its type from the listing: rental, lease transfer or parking.
- Rental — prospective tenant
- New, Contacted, Qualified, Inspection booked, Invited to apply. Then Converted (application submitted or tenancy started) or Lost.
- Lease transfer — incoming tenant
- The same stages as a rental, for someone taking over an existing lease.
- Parking
- The same stages as a rental, with a viewing instead of an inspection.
- New landlord — property management
- New, Contacted, Qualified, Rental appraisal / consultation booked, Management proposal sent. Then Converted (management agreement signed) or Lost.
- Existing landlord / owner
- New, Contacted, Qualified, Review / consultation booked, Proposal sent. Then Converted (management or agency agreement signed) or Lost.
- Seller — sales appraisal
- New, Contacted, Qualified, Sales appraisal booked, Agency agreement proposed. Then Converted (agency agreement signed) or Lost.
- Buyer
- New, Contacted, Qualified, Viewing booked, Offer / negotiation. Then Converted (purchase agreed) or Lost.
- Services
- New, Contacted, Qualified, Quote / proposal sent. Then Converted (service engaged) or Lost.
- General / other (unclassified)
- New, Contacted, Qualified, In progress. Leads received from a connected system start here until someone changes the type.
- Step 1 of 4: NewThe lead has just been created.
- Step 2 of 4: ContactedSomeone at your agency has been in touch.
- Step 3 of 4: QualifiedThe opportunity looks genuine and suitable.
- Step 4 of 4: The type's own next stepsFor example an inspection for a rental, or an appraisal and a management proposal for a new landlord.
Outcome: Converted (choose an outcome that fits the lead type) or Lost (choose a reason). A finished lead can be archived. A lost lead can be reopened as Contacted.
Only the stages allowed for that lead's type and current stage are offered, and the server checks again. If someone else changed the lead first, you are asked to reload and try again, so no change is silently overwritten.
The bar at the top of a lead shows its stages in order, with the current one marked "Current". To change the stage, choose it under "Move to another stage" and select "Update stage" — the bar itself never changes anything. Moves back to an earlier stage are listed as "Back to: …", and closing moves (Converted, Lost, Archived) are listed under "Close the lead". Converted becomes available at the last stage of the lead's type and needs an outcome; Lost needs a reason; Archived is final.
If a lead was given the wrong type, you can change it from the lead page while the lead is still open. You can only choose a type whose stages include the lead's current stage. The change is recorded in the activity timeline.
Lead source
Each lead shows where it was first seen: a PlaceNest enquiry, entered by a member of staff, or received from a connected system, with the date it was first seen.
Good to know: The source only records where the lead came from. It does not mean that channel caused the outcome, and PlaceNest does not credit an advertising channel with a result.
Assigning leads
Each lead has at most one assigned member. When an agent creates a lead, it is assigned to them. Organisation owners, organisation administrators and senior agents can assign or unassign a lead from the lead page, and only to active members of the same agency.
Each change is kept in the lead's activity with who made it, for example "Reassigned from Alex Chen to Sam Lee by Jordan Park" or "Unassigned (was Alex Chen)". When someone leaves the agency, their open leads show "Released to the agency queue when a team member left". People who are no longer in the team appear as "a former team member".
Notes, interactions and the activity timeline
Add a note to a lead or contact to record anything useful. Log an interaction to record a call, e-mail, meeting or inspection that already happened, with when it happened and a short summary. Logging an e-mail records that it happened — the CRM does not send e-mails.
"When it happened" is Canberra time and starts at the current time. It can be earlier, but not in the future.
Every lead and contact has an activity timeline, newest first: notes, logged interactions, status changes, assignment changes and tasks, with who did it and when.
Good to know: Notes and logged interactions cannot be edited or deleted. To correct one, add a new note.
Tasks
Add a task to a lead — for example "Call back about the inspection" — with an optional due date and an assignee from your agency (yourself by default). Mark it Done or Cancel it when it no longer applies. The CRM shows due dates but does not send reminders yet.
Saving changes, confirmations and mistakes
After you save something, a green confirmation that starts with "Success" appears at the top of the page, for example "Lead created" or "Lead stage updated".
If something can't be saved, a box at the top lists each problem, and the field itself shows what to fix, such as a missing summary or a time in the future. What you typed is kept, so you only need to correct the field.
Archiving a contact can't be undone from the CRM, so it asks you to tick a box to confirm.
While a form is saving, its button and fields are disabled. If a form is submitted twice anyway, for example by a double click, it is saved once and the confirmation says nothing was duplicated. To record a genuinely separate lead for the same contact, use the form again after the page has reloaded.
Who can see and change what
Everything in the CRM belongs to one agency. Members of another agency never see it, and it is never shared between agencies — even if the same person is a contact of both.
- Organisation owner, organisation administrator, senior agent
- See and work on all of the agency's contacts and leads, and can assign leads.
- Agent
- Sees and works on the contacts they added and the leads assigned to them (including the contacts of those leads). On a contact they see the contact's own notes and the history of their own leads, but not the notes, interactions, tasks or history of a colleague's lead for the same contact.
- Read-only staff
- Can view the leads assigned to them and their contacts (the same way as an Agent), but cannot change anything.
When a lead is reassigned, what each person sees changes straight away: the new assignee sees the lead and its history, the previous assignee no longer does. A task someone assigns to you is listed under your tasks even when it belongs to a colleague's lead.
PlaceNest's own administrators do not get access to your agency's CRM records through their administrator role.
The CRM opens once your agency membership is active. If you chose an existing agency on your profile, the agency's owner or administrator must confirm you first, under Workspace → Agency team, where they see your PlaceNest reference (USR-…) and the role you asked for. Until then the CRM is not available to you. An approved Agent works on the contacts they add and the leads assigned to them; managing the team stays with the agency's owners and administrators.
On the same page an owner or administrator can suspend a team member (they lose access to the agency straight away and get it back when reinstated), change their role, or remove them from the team. Nobody can change their own membership there, an administrator cannot change an owner, and an agency always keeps at least one active owner. When someone is removed, the open leads assigned to them go back to the agency's unassigned leads; closed leads keep their history. Every change is recorded.
Connected systems
The CRM is built so that, in future, an agency can connect other systems (such as another CRM or a property portal) to receive or send leads. No outside system is connected yet, and the CRM works fully on its own.
When connections become available, each one will show its status, and it can be switched off at any time: by the agency for its own connection, or by PlaceNest for a whole provider if there is a problem. Switching a connection off never affects your records in PlaceNest — anything waiting to be sent simply waits until it is switched back on.
What the CRM does not do yet
- Send e-mails or text messages, or use message templates.
- Send reminders for tasks or alert you about new leads.
- Merge duplicate contacts.
- Tags, automation, reports or importing and exporting contacts.
- Connect to other CRMs, property portals or calendars.
- Owner accounting, rent ledgers or owner statements.
Messages with enquirers stay in your PlaceNest conversations, and applications stay in Applications received.