Hello,

We're trying to implement a 10-stage Opportunity process modeled by 10 Opportunity Stage values that trigger various Workflow Rule Email Alert notifications to sales, legal, and fulfillment reps and managers. 

Our two challenges are:

1) Only allowing reps (users with Profile = "Profile A") to access use certain Opportunity Stages and not others

Some of our Opportunity Stage values reflect manager approvals and should never be selected by reps.  We tried implementing Approvals to faciliate only managers moving Opps to these Stage values, but have found the Approvals feature to be clunky.  Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to have an Approval record be submitted when a rep selects the Opportunity Stage that proceeds the approval step - rather, the Approvals feature only seems to allow for manual submission of approvals via the Approvals related list.  We can't figure out how to assure that Approvals are always submitted and/or assure that Opportunity Stage values reflecting approval steps are selected prior to post-approval Opportunity Stage values being selected.

2) Making sure that each Opportunity Stage is reached individually before Closed/Won or Closed/Lost

Since each of our Opportunity Stage values denotes important internal steps to fulfill an Opportunity in our organization, we need our reps to step through each Stage value in sequence.  We can't figure out a way to avoid allowing reps to bypass Stage values.


Any help greatly appreciated.