AWS invitations (referrals and leads)
AWS sends you two kinds of engagement invitation:
- a referral: an opportunity an AWS seller wants to co-sell with you;
- a lead: a prospect from an AWS marketing campaign, marked Lead. Nothing is in Partner Central's pipeline yet.
CoSell receives both within seconds, adds them to AWS invitations, and notifies you in the console and by email (Settings → General → Notification emails). Use the Type filter to see only referrals or only leads.
Answer within the deadline
Each invitation shows when it arrived, a respond by time (your SLA: 120 hours for new workspaces, changeable under Settings → General) and when AWS expires it. CoSell reminds you once the SLA passes.
- Accept: CoSell accepts the invitation in Partner Central. AWS then creates the opportunity, and CoSell creates the Zoho account, contact and deal (origin AWS Referral), with AWS's expected spend converted to your currency.
- Reject: give AWS a reason, such as "Outside our territory".
AWS creates the opportunity a little after the acceptance. Until then the row reads Waiting for AWS to create the opportunity; the deal appears by itself, usually within minutes. Retry import checks straight away. A retry never creates a second deal.
If AWS refuses an acceptance, the reason is shown under the status and the invitation stays pending with Accept again. The usual cause is an out-of-date access role; see Connect your AWS account.
Leads
Before you accept a lead, AWS shares only the company, its country and industry, the campaign it came from, and the contact's job title. CoSell lists the lead under the company's name. (AWS's own title for a lead is the contact's job title, such as "Director".)
- Accept: CoSell accepts the lead in Partner Central. AWS then shares the contact (name, email, phone) and what the customer did, and CoSell creates a Zoho lead with them. The lead's description names the AWS campaign. If a Zoho lead with the same email exists already, CoSell links that one instead. If Zoho fails, the lead stays accepted, the reason is shown, and CoSell tries again on its next run. Add to Zoho tries straight away.
- Reject: as for a referral.
Work the lead in Zoho. Once it is qualified, choose Convert to opportunity on the AWS invitations page. AWS converts a lead only when it has the customer's website and industry, and AWS leads usually arrive without a website, so CoSell asks for both. Then CoSell:
- marks the lead Qualified in Partner Central and creates your opportunity from it;
- converts the Zoho lead into an account, contact and deal (origin Partner Referral) named after the customer;
- links the deal to the new opportunity.
AWS titles every converted lead Converted from Lead. The deal's name replaces that title when the deal next syncs. The opportunity is yours to complete and submit, as for any deal of your own: open the deal and choose Complete and submit.
Convert from CoSell rather than converting the lead in Zoho yourself. Partner Central then records that the lead became an opportunity. If someone converted the Zoho lead already, CoSell creates the deal from AWS's record instead.
Leads your team accepted in Partner Central show Accepted in Partner Central. Add to Zoho brings one in as a Zoho lead, and Convert to opportunity works for them too.
Converting needs two permissions that older access roles lack. If AWS refuses, update the stack as described in Connect your AWS account.
Accept automatically
Set Auto-accept AWS invitations under Settings → General to accept every referral as soon as it arrives. A failed automatic acceptance is retried, three attempts in all, and then you are asked to decide. Leads always wait for a person: accepting one commits your team to follow up with the prospect.
Invitations accepted in Partner Central
Referrals your team accepted directly in Partner Central show Accepted in Partner Central. Bring their opportunities into Zoho with Import from Partner Central.
Invitations in the Sandbox catalog are marked Sandbox · test only.