If you’re in sales or revenue operations, you know the feeling: you look at your pipeline and wonder, “Which of these deals are real, and which are about to go sideways?” Clari’s supposed to help with that, but it’s easy to get lost in dashboards, signals, and fancy AI predictions. This guide is for anyone who actually wants to use Clari to keep deals moving and catch trouble before it bites you. No fluff, no hype—just what works.
1. Get Oriented: What Clari Actually Tracks (and What It Doesn’t)
Before you dive into tracking deals, it’s worth being honest about what Clari does well—and what it can’t do for you.
What works: - Pulls in CRM data (like from Salesforce) and email/calendar activity, so you see more than just what reps enter manually. - Flags deals that have gone quiet, slipped, or changed in key ways. - Gives a high-level view of pipeline health and forecast coverage.
What to ignore: - Don’t trust predicted deal outcomes blindly. Clari’s AI is only as good as your CRM hygiene and user adoption. - Glossy graphs don’t close deals. You still need real conversations with your team.
Pro tip: If your CRM data is junk, Clari’s insights will be too. Garbage in, garbage out.
2. Set Up Your Views & Filters: Don’t Get Lost in the Noise
Clari can be overwhelming out of the box—too many columns, too many deals, too many “signals.” Start by customizing your workspace.
Key steps:
- Pick Your Pipeline Stage
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Decide which stage(s) you actually care about. Early-stage opportunities aren’t worth obsessing over—focus on later-stage deals where you can make a difference.
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Use Filters Ruthlessly
- Filter by close date, deal size, region, or rep—whatever actually matters to your business.
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Hide tiny deals or ones forecasted far into the future. They’re just noise.
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Customize Columns
- Show only the fields that matter: deal owner, stage, close date, amount, last touch, next step, and commit status.
- Hide “nice to have” fields unless you actually use them in your process.
Pro tip: Save your favorite views so you don’t have to set this up every time. Share them with your team so everyone’s working from the same playbook.
3. Track Deal Progress: What to Watch (and What’s Just Hype)
With your views set, it’s time to actually track what’s happening. Here’s what’s useful:
a. Activity Signals
Clari pulls in emails, meetings, and calls. Look for: - Last touch: When did anyone from your team last interact with the customer? - Next meeting: Is there something on the calendar, or is the deal just drifting? - Multi-threading: Are you talking to more than one contact at the account, or just your champion?
Red flags: - No activity in 2+ weeks on a “committed” deal. - No next meeting scheduled. - Only one contact looped in, especially for bigger deals.
b. Stage Movement
Clari tracks when deals move forward—or backward. - Is the deal moving stages at all? If it’s stuck, dig in. - Did it move backward? That’s usually a sign of trouble.
c. Close Date Pushes
If the close date keeps slipping, don’t ignore it. Clari will flag these, but you have to actually ask “why?”
Pro tip: Ask your reps to log why a date changed, not just update it. Otherwise, you’re just watching the can get kicked down the road.
d. Forecast Category Changes
Deals moving from “Commit” to “Best Case” (or worse) are waving a red flag. Clari highlights these, but you need to follow up.
4. Spot At-Risk Opportunities: Use Data, Then Your Gut
Clari tries to surface “at risk” deals with signals, but don’t let software replace your brain. Use its signals as a starting point.
What to look for:
- Stale deals: No recent activity, especially if it’s supposed to close soon.
- Repeated close date pushes: If it’s slipped more than once, it’s at risk.
- Low engagement: Only one or two emails exchanged, no meetings, no executive involvement.
- Deal size change: If the amount drops unexpectedly, something’s up.
- Negative sentiment: Some setups include AI that “reads” email sentiment. Take this with a grain of salt; it’s easy to misinterpret.
What works: - Use Clari’s “at risk” filters to generate a shortlist. - Gut-check each deal in your 1:1s—ask the rep what’s really happening.
What doesn’t: - Don’t rely on “AI risk scores” alone. Use them to start a conversation, not end it. - Avoid getting bogged down in every minor alert. Focus on patterns—a few big deals slipping is more important than every single stage change.
5. Run Effective Deal Reviews (Not Just Dashboard Karaoke)
It’s tempting to sit in meetings and just read Clari dashboards out loud. That’s a waste of time. Here’s how to use Clari to make reviews useful:
- Start With the Exceptions
- Focus on deals that are flagged as at risk, slipped, or stalled.
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Skip deals that are progressing as planned; don’t waste time on “green” deals.
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Ask “Why?”, Not Just “What?”
- Why did the close date slip? Why did the amount change? Why aren’t there more contacts involved?
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Push for specifics, not just status updates.
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Document Next Steps
- Use Clari’s notes fields or your CRM to log what’s going to happen next—and by when.
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If there’s no next step, the deal isn’t real.
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Track Follow-Through
- Revisit action items in the next review. Did the rep actually do what they said?
- Clari won’t hold people accountable; that’s on you.
Pro tip: Keep deal reviews short and focused. If you’re going past 60 minutes, you’re probably talking too much and acting too little.
6. Watch Out for Common Pitfalls
Even with Clari humming along, there are a few traps to avoid:
- Dirty CRM Data: If reps aren’t logging activity or updating stages, Clari’s signals are worthless. Make it a habit, not an afterthought.
- Signal Overload: Not every alert matters. Customize notifications so you’re not chasing every blip.
- Executive “Happy Ears”: Don’t let Clari’s fancy visuals make you overconfident. Use it to spot risks, not to polish the forecast for the board.
- Ignoring Rep Context: Sometimes, the software says “at risk” but the rep knows something you don’t. Trust, but verify.
7. Iterate and Improve: Don’t Set It and Forget It
Clari is a tool, not a magic wand. Here’s how to keep improving:
- Review your filters, columns, and views every quarter. Your business changes—so should your setup.
- Ask your team what’s useful and what’s noise. Kill what’s not helping.
- Share wins and misses. If Clari flagged a deal that actually died (or closed), talk about it. What signal mattered most?
Pro tip: The best teams use Clari to start conversations, not to replace them.
Keep It Simple: The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, tracking deal progress and spotting at-risk opportunities in Clari is about focus. Use the software to shine a light on the real issues, then dig in with your team. Don’t get lost in dashboards or AI predictions—keep asking the hard questions, keep your data clean, and keep iterating. Simple beats complicated every time.
Now, go close some deals—and don’t let surprises catch you off guard.