# Sales pipeline review: how to run a deal-by-deal review that finds the deals at risk
How a sales manager runs a sales pipeline review: how to sort deals by risk by hand, then how Oliv AI does the prep, from each rep's One-on-One Prep report and deal risk alerts to the forecast board, rep nudges and the Monday Pipeline Review.
- Applies to: Sales managers and BDR leads with a connected CRM and team calendar
- Status: Live
- Verified: 2026-11-02
- Canonical page: https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/workflows/run-a-pipeline-review/
A sales pipeline review goes long when it walks every deal, and the deals at risk can still slip through. Run it as the weekly meeting where you decide which deals need help: check each open deal's last activity, close date and next step beforehand, then spend the meeting only on the deals that changed. Oliv AI does that prep for you, as a layer on top of your CRM. Oliv AI's Deal Driver agent writes a **One-on-One Prep** report for each rep before their 1:1, on that rep's own schedule, such as every Thursday. Through the week it flags deals that need attention, each with a suggested action.
## At a glance {#at-a-glance}
| | |
|---|---|
| **Who runs it** | Sales managers and BDR leads, with Oliv AI's Deal Driver agent |
| **Per-rep report** | **One-on-One Prep**, on each rep's schedule, such as every Thursday |
| **Daily rhythm** | **Morning Brief** and **Sunset Summary** every weekday, plus live alerts |
| **Each alert carries** | The deal, the signal, context and a suggested action |
| **For leadership** | **Pipeline Review** every Monday, a full view of every deal by status |
| **Where reports live** | **Reports › My Reports**, grouped by the agent that writes them |
| **The forecast** | The **Boards** tab in Forecast, by manager and rep |
| **Set-up** | Connect the CRM and team calendar, then set alert thresholds |
## Before you begin {#before-you-begin}
- **Connect the CRM and the team's calendar.** Deal Driver reads meeting and activity data, plus deal stage, amount, close date and next steps.
- **Have your team roster and hierarchy set.** Reports and alerts follow who reports to whom.
- **Decide your thresholds.** Inactivity windows, field completion requirements and deal value thresholds can be set per manager or per team.
- **Keep the fields current.** Deal Driver flags risk from these fields. [Oliv AI's CRM Manager agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/crm-manager/) updates them from calls, emails and meetings.
## Step 1: Set up Deal Driver {#step-1-set-up}
Connect the CRM and the team's calendar, then set alert thresholds. Most managers are live within a week. Reps don't need to change anything: [Oliv AI's Deal Driver agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/deal-driver/) works in the background and shows up for them as follow-up prompts and next-step reminders.
You can also adjust alert sensitivity and the brief format. Every scheduled report appears in **Reports › My Reports**, and briefs, alerts and summaries can also reach the manager through [Slack](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/integrations/slack/) or email.
## Step 2: Start the day with the Morning Brief {#step-2-morning-brief}
Every weekday, Deal Driver's **Morning Brief** opens on an **Overview**: the day's meetings across the team, the key highlights and customer engagement. **Important Meetings** come next, then each rep's meetings. It covers:
- Today's meetings across the team: who is meeting whom, which deal it relates to and what matters about the call.
- Flags for meetings where your attendance or pre-meeting notes would add value.
- Priority deals to watch that day, based on signals from the prior 24 hours.
Each meeting card shows the meeting type and time, checks it against your calendar, and offers **Add me to this call** and **Leave a note**. On review day, the important meetings and priority deals are a good first cut of the agenda.
The Morning Brief turns the team's calendar into a short list of meetings that matter, which is where review day starts. The counts shown come from a demo team with sample data.
## Step 3: Open each rep's One-on-One Prep {#step-3-rep-reports}
Deal Driver compiles a structured view of each rep's pipeline before their 1:1. In **My Reports**, open **One-on-One Prep** and pick the rep. The report shows their total pipeline and deal count, then a **Pipeline Summary** of **Pipeline Health**, **Deal Momentum** and **Areas for Improvement**.
The rest of the report sorts the rep's deals into **Closed Won**, **Closed Lost**, **Closing Soon**, **Quick Wins**, **On Track Deals**, **Deals at Risk**, **Existing Customers** and **Needs Follow Up**. Each deal has a summary and a next step.
One-on-One Prep gives the manager a rep's whole pipeline, sorted by what needs attention, so the 1:1 can skip the status recap. The pipeline total and deal count are sample figures.
Minutes after that report, [Oliv AI's Coach agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/coach/) follows with that rep's coaching goal and weekly progress. For prep on the customer meetings themselves, reps get their own brief, covered in [Prepare for a meeting](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/workflows/prepare-for-a-meeting/).
## Step 4: Work deal by deal {#step-4-deal-by-deal}
Go through each rep's flagged deals in turn. Deal Driver monitors all activity and raises an alert when:
- A deal enters a risk state, such as no activity for a set number of days, or a close date approaching without progress.
- A rep hasn't updated the Core 4 Fields after a meeting.
- A deal stage changes unexpectedly, moving backward or stalling mid-stage.
- A high-value opportunity goes quiet.
- A rep shows a pattern that warrants attention, such as consistently missing next-step fields.
For the whole team, Deal Driver's **Pipeline Review** lists every deal by status, including **Deals at Risk**, **Stalled Deals** and **Needs Follow Up**. Each section opens with a **Deals Overview**, and each deal card has a **Deal Summary**, a **Next Step** and **Review Deal** to open the deal.
Pipeline Review is the deal-by-deal agenda: jump straight to the at-risk and stalled sections instead of walking the healthy deals.
For each flagged deal:
1. Read the alert. It names the deal, the signal, the relevant context and a suggested action.
2. Ask the rep about the signal, not the status. The status is already on the page.
3. Agree the next step and who owns it.
4. Move to the next flagged deal. Deals without a flag can wait for the next review.
## Step 5: Check the forecast {#step-5-forecast}
[Oliv AI's Forecaster agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/forecaster/) rolls Deal Driver's signals into the number: close dates without activity, confidence without engagement and stalled next steps. As the manager:
1. Open **Apps › Forecast › Boards**. Pick the board, then **Quarterly**, **Monthly** or **Weekly**, and the period.
2. Expand your row to see each rep's **Target Attainment**, **Pipeline Coverage**, **Commit Forecast** and **Most Likely Forecast**, with the change since last week.
3. Click a manager's name to drill into that team, and use the back arrow to return.
4. Open a rep's submission drawer. Add a manager-level adjustment to **Commit** and a comment explaining it.
5. In the deal tabs, accept or dismiss each suggested category move.
Expanding a manager's row puts each rep's number next to the team roll-up, so the forecast conversation follows the same rep order as the review. All figures on this board are demo data.
Drilling in narrows the board to one manager's team, which is the view a first-line manager walks through rep by rep.
Suggested moves go both ways, down for stalled deals and up for ready ones, and each carries the risk reason to raise with the rep. Deal values here are sample amounts for a demo brand.
Forecaster's **Weekly Forecast** in **My Reports** then compares the team's forecast with the AI forecast and lists the deals likely to slip. The [Oliv Forecast overview](https://www.oliv.ai/oliv-forecast) covers the forecasting side in more depth.
## Step 6: Let follow-through run {#step-6-follow-through}
After the review, the agents keep the agreed next steps moving:
- **Rep nudges.** Deal Driver nudges reps directly when deals stall, next steps go overdue or activity drops, before you need to step in.
- **Evening voice check-in (Beta).** Each evening, Oliv AI's Voice Agent (Beta) reaches out to team members with targeted questions. They answer by voice, with no forms to fill in.
- **Sunset Summary.** Every weekday evening, Deal Driver recaps wins, risks and next-step gaps: deals won or lost, meetings held and their outcomes, deals newly flagged at risk and open situations to follow up. It also notes whether the day's meetings were recorded.
- **Monday Pipeline Review.** The week starts with a ready-to-review summary of every deal for leadership, prepared before the first standup.
## What a pipeline review with Oliv AI is {#what-it-is}
A pipeline review with Oliv AI is your usual deal review, with the preparation done by agents. Oliv AI's Deal Driver agent runs that preparation on a daily and a weekly rhythm:
| Rhythm | What arrives | When |
|---|---|---|
| **Morning Brief** | Today's team meetings, meetings worth joining, priority deals | Every weekday morning |
| **Live alerts** | A deal, its signal, context and a suggested action | When something needs attention |
| **Sunset Summary** | Wins, losses, meeting outcomes, new risks, next-step gaps | Every weekday evening |
| **One-on-One Prep** | Each rep's pipeline by status, with a summary and next step per deal | On each rep's schedule, such as every Thursday |
| **Pipeline Review** | Every deal in the pipeline by status, for executive updates | Every Monday |
Each report opens in **Reports › My Reports** with a date picker to page through past editions and **Rate this report**.
## Why a pipeline review with Oliv AI matters {#why-it-matters}
### What it's for {#what-its-for}
A pipeline review is where a manager decides which deals need help this week. With the prep done ahead of time, the meeting goes on those decisions, because the status is already on the page.
### How it helps {#how-it-helps}
- **Reports arrive before the meeting.** Each rep's pipeline view is ready before the 1:1, with nothing to pull.
- **Risk shows up early.** Alerts fire when deals stall or stages drift, before a rep has to mention it.
- **Every alert suggests a move.** The deal, the signal and a suggested action come together.
- **Follow-through doesn't depend on memory.** Reps get nudged when next steps go overdue.
### What happens without it {#without-it}
Without prep, each 1:1 opens on status updates. A deal can go quiet for two weeks or more before anyone notices. By the time the rep escalates, momentum is gone and the deal is hard to save.
### Why buyers care {#why-buyers-care}
First-line sales managers and BDR leads run these reviews every week, and VPs of Sales and regional heads inherit the numbers. The review counts most in the last weeks of a quarter, when a missed slip changes the forecast.
## The Oliv AI approach to pipeline reviews {#approach}
{/* 5P */}
Picture a first-line sales manager with six reps and a standing Thursday review. It runs ninety minutes, about fifteen per rep. The goal is to go deal by deal and leave with a clear next step on every opportunity that's slipping.
Most managers prep by pulling a CRM report per rep and reading recent call notes. In the meeting, reps often walk through every deal, including the healthy ones. The time tends to run out before the stuck deals get real attention.
Most of that time goes on looking things up. Which deals went quiet, which close dates moved and which fields are blank are all facts the system already holds. Hand the lookup to an agent, and the meeting can start at the problem deals.
Oliv AI's Deal Driver agent does the lookup before Thursday. Each rep's prep report lands before the manager's first meeting, with deal health, activity and flagged items. Alerts through the week mark the deals that changed. After the review, nudges keep the agreed next steps from slipping. The manager spends the fifteen minutes per rep on the two or three deals that need a decision, and the healthy ones get a nod.
Every alert includes the deal, the signal, relevant context and a suggested action for the manager. How other platforms support a weekly pipeline review is covered in How Oliv AI compares for sales pipeline reviews, below.
## How a deal at risk shows up in a pipeline review {#methods}
Before the meeting, every open deal gets the same three questions. Each one catches a different kind of trouble, and each one misses something.
### Has the close date moved? {#close-date-check}
Compare this week's close date with last week's. A date that keeps sliding is the clearest sign a deal won't land when the rep says. The catch is that a close date can be a default, not a promise: HubSpot, for example, [sets a missing close date to the last day of the month](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/properties/hubspots-default-deal-properties) when a deal is created. A deal whose date never moves can still be dead.
### Has the deal gone quiet? {#activity-check}
Look at the last activity date and whether a next activity is booked. HubSpot records a [last activity date and a next activity date](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/properties/hubspots-default-deal-properties) on each deal, and flags a deal as stalled once its time in stage runs 20% longer than the owner's closed-won average. This catches deals nobody is working. It misses deals that are busy but going nowhere.
### Is the buyer still moving forward? {#buyer-progress-check}
Ask what the buyer did since the last review, not what the rep did. Gartner found that B2B buyers [revisit buying steps in parallel](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-11-13-gartner-says-the-traditional-linear-sales-process-no-) rather than in stage order, so a deal can sit in a late stage while the buyer goes back to earlier questions. This is the hardest check to run from fields alone, because the evidence sits in calls and emails.
### Which of these Deal Driver watches {#what-deal-driver-watches}
Deal Driver flags a deal when it has had no activity for a set number of days, or when its close date approaches without progress. It also flags a stage that moves backward or stalls, a high-value deal that goes quiet, and Core 4 Fields left blank after a meeting. You set the inactivity window per manager or per team.
## How to run a sales pipeline review by hand {#manual-method}
1. **Pull each rep's open deals** for the period, with value, stage, close date, last activity and next step.
2. **Mark the deals to rescue.** These have gone quiet past your inactivity window, or their close date has moved twice.
3. **Mark the deals to discuss.** These close inside the next 30 days and are still active.
4. **Skip the rest.** Healthy deals don't need meeting time.
5. **In the meeting, take the rescue list first,** then the discuss list. Ask about the signal on each deal, and leave with an owner and a date for the next step.
6. **Check the rescue list again next week.** A rescued deal with no new activity goes back on the list.
What goes wrong: the pull goes stale by meeting day, reps fill gaps from memory, and the healthy deals take the time. Check that every deal you discuss leaves with a dated next step.
### The same review with Oliv AI {#same-review-oliv}
Deal Driver's **One-on-One Prep** already sorts each rep's deals into sections such as **Closing Soon**, **Deals at Risk**, **On Track Deals** and **Needs Follow Up**, with a summary and next step on each deal. Use **Deals at Risk** and **Needs Follow Up** as your rescue list, **Closing Soon** as your discuss list, and **On Track Deals** as the skip list. The Monday **Pipeline Review** adds **Stalled Deals** across the whole team, and nudges carry the agreed next steps after the meeting.
### Worked example: sorting ten open deals into discuss, skip and rescue {#worked-example}
This is an illustrative calculation with sample figures, not an Oliv AI output. A manager has ten open deals across the team worth 800,000 USD. The rule: rescue a deal quiet for 14 days or more, or with a close date pushed twice. Discuss a deal that closes within 30 days. Skip the rest.
| Deal | Value (USD) | Days since last activity | Close date | Bucket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 150,000 | 3 | In 20 days | Discuss |
| B | 120,000 | 18 | In 40 days | Rescue (quiet 18 days) |
| C | 100,000 | 5 | In 25 days | Discuss |
| D | 90,000 | 4 | In 60 days | Skip |
| E | 80,000 | 10 | Pushed twice | Rescue (date moved twice) |
| F | 70,000 | 2 | In 75 days | Skip |
| G | 60,000 | 6 | In 28 days, no next step | Discuss |
| H | 50,000 | 7 | In 90 days | Skip |
| I | 40,000 | 3 | In 45 days | Skip |
| J | 40,000 | 9 | In 120 days | Skip |
| **Totals** | **800,000** | | | Discuss 310,000 · Rescue 200,000 · Skip 290,000 |
Discuss is 150,000 + 100,000 + 60,000 = 310,000 USD. Rescue is 120,000 + 80,000 = 200,000 USD. Skip is 90,000 + 70,000 + 50,000 + 40,000 + 40,000 = 290,000 USD, and the three add back to 800,000 USD.
So five of the ten deals carry 510,000 USD, or about 64% of the value. At six minutes a deal, walking all ten takes 60 minutes; the five that matter take 30. Deal G shows why the next step column matters: it is active, but nobody owns what happens next.
## How to tell whether your pipeline reviews are working {#measure-review}
Gartner suggests three pipeline measures for spotting risk early: [initial pipeline value, conversion rate and slippage rate](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/7952073). A review mostly moves the last one. Track it simply: of the deals you expected to close this period, what share by value pushed to a later one?
Two weak spots. Slippage counts the push, not the reason, so pair it with the risk reason on each deal. And a review can lower slippage by pushing dates early, which looks good and closes nothing. Check the rescue list too: how many rescued deals had a dated next step a week later?
In Oliv AI, the Monday **Pipeline Review** shows **Deals at Risk** and **Stalled Deals** across the team, and Forecaster's **Weekly Forecast** lists the deals likely to slip.
## How a pipeline review works with other features {#works-with}
### CRM Manager {#with-crm-manager}
[Oliv AI's CRM Manager agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/crm-manager/) refreshes deal fields overnight from calls, emails and meetings. Deal Driver then flags risk from what actually happened. CRM Manager also supplies the Core 4 Fields completion data behind the gap alerts.
### Meeting support for reps {#with-meeting-support}
Before every meeting on an active opportunity, reps get a brief with the deal summary, qualification status, stakeholders and an agenda. After the call, the [follow-up email is drafted](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/workflows/record-and-follow-up/) and [CRM updates are proposed](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/workflows/keep-the-crm-updated/). Account executives see this in [running deals with Oliv AI](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/use-cases/ae-run-deals/).
### Olivia for reps {#with-olivia}
[Oliv AI's Olivia agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/olivia/) is the agent reps work with day to day, while Deal Driver is the manager's tool. During the review, the **Ask** button on the Forecast board opens Olivia beside it.
### Portfolio Manager for customer success {#with-portfolio-manager}
Customer success managers have an equivalent: Oliv AI's Portfolio Manager agent. It applies the same manager-visibility model to the renewal and retention book instead of the pipeline.
### Agent permissions {#with-tools}
The CRM updates and follow-up emails above are actions agents take through tools. [Agent tools and run modes](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/builder/tools-and-run-modes/) explains how to make those actions wait for approval.
## Who runs pipeline reviews with Oliv AI, and how {#who-uses-it}
These are typical patterns, shown to illustrate how teams use the review rhythm.
### Sales managers {#sales-managers}
A sales manager reads each rep's prep report over coffee and lists the flagged deals. The review covers only those, and standups get shorter because the morning brief already covers the day. The [sales manager's daily guide](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/oliv-ai-sales-manager-daily-use-guide-features) walks through the rest of the week.
### BDR leads {#bdr-leads}
A BDR lead runs the same review on an outbound pipeline. The morning brief, rep alerts and rep reports work the same way, with cadence and fields set for the BDR motion.
### VPs of Sales and regional heads {#sales-leadership}
A VP of Sales starts the week with the Monday Pipeline Review instead of stitching leadership reviews together by hand. Flagged deals point at the conversations worth having with each manager. It pairs with a habit of [evidence-based forecast commits](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/run-evidence-based-forecast-commits).
### Revenue operations {#revenue-operations}
A RevOps lead sets the inactivity windows and field completion rules with each manager, so alerts match how the team sells. Clean fields from CRM Manager keep those alerts honest. For the wider goal, see [better forecast accuracy](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/improve-sales-forecast-accuracy-with-ai).
## How Oliv AI compares for sales pipeline reviews {#compare}
Oliv AI delivers a pipeline report for each rep before the week's 1:1s and nudges reps when next steps go overdue. It also prepares a Monday pipeline summary for leadership before the first standup. Oliv AI is the only platform in this table that does all three.
Sales pipeline review support, from each platform's public documentation:
| Platform | Per-rep pipeline report before each 1:1 | Rep nudges when next steps go overdue | Monday pipeline rollup for leadership |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Oliv AI** | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Gong** | Partly ([board to check before 1:1s](https://help.gong.io/docs/recipe-focus-on-deals-that-need-your-attention)) | Partly ([overdue to-do filter](https://help.gong.io/docs/find-and-organize-your-to-dos)) | Partly ([weekly digest from a deal board](https://help.gong.io/docs/faqs-for-deals)) |
| **Outreach** | Partly ([pipeline summary per rep](https://support.outreach.io/support/solutions/articles/159000425547-sales-manager-workflows-for-rep-coaching-and-1-1-s)) | Partly ([overdue tasks in reports](https://support.outreach.io/support/solutions/articles/159000423739-outreach-insights-sequence-performance-report-overview)) | Partly ([forecast rollup for managers](https://support.outreach.io/support/solutions/articles/159000425492-how-to-use-the-forecast-rollup)) |
| **Avoma** | Not in docs | Not in docs | Partly ([forecast board you open](https://help.avoma.com/know-your-forecast-board)) |
| **Fireflies.ai** | Not in docs | Not in docs | Not in docs |
| **Fathom** | Not in docs | Not in docs | Not in docs |
*Yes: documented and built in. Partly: documented with a limit, shown in brackets. Not in docs: not found in the vendor's public documentation.*
### Why Oliv AI is the stronger choice for sales pipeline reviews {#compare-stronger}
- **Each rep's report arrives on its own.** Oliv AI's Deal Driver agent prepares a report for each rep on that rep's schedule, before the 1:1. [Gong recommends checking a deal board weekly, particularly before 1:1s and pipeline reviews](https://help.gong.io/docs/recipe-focus-on-deals-that-need-your-attention). See [Gong vs Oliv AI](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/gong-vs-oliv).
- **Overdue next steps reach the rep.** Deal Driver nudges reps directly when next steps go overdue. [Outreach reports count incomplete tasks at least one calendar day overdue](https://support.outreach.io/support/solutions/articles/159000423739-outreach-insights-sequence-performance-report-overview). See [how Outreach compares with Gong](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/gong-vs-outreach).
- **A summary prepared for leadership.** Oliv AI's Monday Pipeline Review is ready before the first standup. [Avoma's forecast board is viewed by deal stage or forecast category](https://help.avoma.com/know-your-forecast-board). See [Oliv AI vs Avoma](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/avoma-vs-oliv-ai).
- **A rollup built for the week, not a board subscription.** Oliv AI prepares the Monday summary for leadership automatically. [Gong subscribers receive a weekly digest of deals through the deal board](https://help.gong.io/docs/faqs-for-deals). See [Oliv AI as a Gong alternative](https://www.oliv.ai/gong-alternative).
*Competitor details checked against each vendor's public documentation on 21 October 2026. Features and plans change, so confirm with the vendor before you decide.*
## Limits and things to know {#limits}
- **Data quality sets the ceiling.** Deal Driver's signals are only as good as the CRM data behind them. Run Oliv AI's CRM Manager agent alongside it.
- **Deal Driver doesn't write to the CRM.** It surfaces signals for the manager to act on. Field updates belong to CRM Manager.
- **It isn't the forecast.** Pipeline projection and accuracy belong to [Oliv AI's Forecaster agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/forecaster/).
- **It isn't coaching.** Rep development belongs to [Oliv AI's Coach agent](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/coach/).
- **Voice check-ins are Beta.** Don't build your review process around the evening check-in yet.
## Common questions {#common-questions}
#### When does the per-rep report arrive? {#faq-report-timing}
On each rep's schedule, such as every Thursday, before the manager's 1:1 with that rep. It covers deal health, activity levels, stuck deals and what to focus on next week.
#### Will this replace my daily standup? {#faq-standup}
Most managers who use Deal Driver shorten it considerably, and some drop it. Once the morning brief covers what's new, the standup can move from status updates to decisions.
#### Can I change what triggers an alert? {#faq-alert-thresholds}
Yes. Inactivity windows, field completion requirements and deal value thresholds can be set per manager or per team.
#### Does it work for BDR teams? {#faq-bdr}
Yes, for BDR and AE teams alike. Cadence and field configurations differ, but the briefs, alerts and rep reports work the same way.
#### What does leadership get? {#faq-leadership}
The Pipeline Review every Monday: a full view of every deal in the pipeline, sorted by status, prepared before the first standup.
#### Do reps need to do anything differently? {#faq-reps}
No. Deal Driver works in the background. Reps see it as follow-up prompts and next-step reminders.
#### Where do briefs and reports arrive? {#faq-channels}
In **Reports › My Reports**, under the agent that writes each one. Alerts and summaries can also reach managers through Slack or email.
#### Can I look back at last week's report? {#faq-past-reports}
Yes. Each report has a date picker with previous and next arrows, so you can page back through past editions.
#### What happens after the review? {#faq-after-review}
Reps get nudges when deals stall or next steps go overdue. The Sunset Summary and the Monday Pipeline Review keep the manager and leadership current.
#### Is there an equivalent for customer success? {#faq-customer-success}
Yes. Customer success managers use Oliv AI's Portfolio Manager agent, which applies the same model to the renewal and retention book.
#### How often should you hold a pipeline review? {#faq-how-often}
This guide assumes a weekly review. That matches the reports: each rep's One-on-One Prep arrives on a weekly schedule, and the team Pipeline Review arrives every Monday.
#### What questions should you ask in a pipeline review? {#faq-questions}
Ask about the signal, not the status. Why has this deal gone quiet, why did the close date move, and who owns the next step, by when?
#### What should a rep prepare for a pipeline review? {#faq-rep-prep}
With Oliv AI, nothing extra. The rep's deals are already sorted in the One-on-One Prep report, so the rep only needs answers for the flagged deals.
#### How do you spot a deal at risk in a pipeline review? {#faq-spot-risk}
Check three things on each deal: whether the close date moved, whether the deal has gone quiet, and whether the buyer is still moving forward. Deal Driver flags inactivity and close dates approaching without progress for you.
## Further reading {#further-reading}
- [Focus on 3 Pipeline Metrics to Improve Your Sales Forecast](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/7952073): Gartner's three pipeline measures, including slippage rate.
- [Gartner Says the Traditional Linear Sales Process No Longer Exists](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-11-13-gartner-says-the-traditional-linear-sales-process-no-): why stage alone misreads where a buyer is.
- [HubSpot's default deal properties](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/properties/hubspots-default-deal-properties): how close date, last activity date and the stalled flag are set.
## Related {#related}
- [Deal Driver agent guide](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/deal-driver/): every alert, brief and report the agent sends.
- [Oliv AI product documentation](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/): every guide, by agent and feature.
- [Olivia agent guide](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/olivia/): the agent reps work with day to day.
- [Account executive guide to running deals](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/use-cases/ae-run-deals/): the rep side of the same pipeline.
- [Agent tools and run modes](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/agents/builder/tools-and-run-modes/): control which agent actions need approval.
- [Prepare for a meeting](https://www.oliv.ai/product-docs/workflows/prepare-for-a-meeting/): the brief reps get before each call.
- [Agentic forecasting webinar](https://www.oliv.ai/leadership-webinar): how leaders move forecasting to agents.
- [Deal intelligence software](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/deal-intelligence): how AI predicts pipeline risk.
- [Pipeline analytics software](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/pipeline-analytics-software): tools for stage and coverage analysis.
- [Why the board deck takes all weekend](https://www.oliv.ai/blog/sales-forecast-accuracy-cro): a CRO's guide to forecast accuracy.
*Updated 2 November 2026: added the manual review method, risk checks, a worked example, a measure for reviews, more questions and further reading.*