Deskie connects the early stages of interest to full membership through a single shared path. Almost every way a prospect first touches your space can create a CRM lead, and from the CRM (or from the guest list) you convert that person into a member. Once they are a member, they flow into the rest of the system: billing, assignments, passes, events, and access. This article explains exactly how those pieces connect, based on how the features actually behave.
The shared CRM funnel
The CRM pipeline (see CRM pipeline) is the common destination for early interest. Many flows in Deskie call the same internal step that finds or creates a lead for the workspace. That step does two important things consistently:
- It deduplicates by email. If an active lead with the same email already exists in the workspace, the existing lead is reused instead of creating a duplicate. Leads without an email are always created fresh.
- It respects a workspace kill-switch. Each workspace has an auto-create setting for CRM leads. When that setting is turned off, the tour, visitor, waitlist, and other automatic hooks quietly do nothing rather than spawning leads. Operators who prefer to run the CRM as manual-entry only can use this to keep auto-created cards out of their pipeline.
Every lead carries a source (such as tour, visitor, guest, waitlist, website, referral, walk-in, phone call, or other) and, when relevant, a reference back to the originating record (for example the tour ID, visitor ID, waitlist entry ID, or the user account). Auto-created leads also get a timeline entry noting which source produced them.
How each entry point becomes a lead
Different starting points create leads at different pipeline stages, reflecting how warm the contact is.
Tours
When someone books a tour through the public booking form, Deskie records the tour and then creates a lead with source tour, linked to that tour. Because a booked tour is a strong signal of intent, the lead is created at the engaged stage rather than the default new. The lead carries the visitor's name, email, phone, and location. See Tours for the operator side of rescheduling and cancelling.
Visitors and check-in
When a visitor checks in, Deskie records the visitor and creates a lead with source visitor at the new stage, linked to the visitor record. This captures walk-in interest in the pipeline alongside everything else. See Visitors and check-in.
The waitlist
When someone joins your public waitlist, Deskie stores the waitlist entry and creates a lead with source waitlist at the new stage. The waitlist also records what the person is interested in: if they chose a specific asset, the lead gets a matching interest line, and the estimated value is seeded from the asset's waitlist rate (or its standard rate if no waitlist rate is set). On the admin waitlist view, each entry's status reflects the linked lead's pipeline stage, so the waitlist and the CRM stay in sync. See Waitlist.
Guest purchases and public sign-ups
When a new guest books a resource, buys a pass, or buys an event ticket through your public site, Deskie creates a guest account behind the checkout and, for genuinely new guests, also creates a lead with source guest linked to that user. Public asset and plan sign-ups create a lead with source website. In every case the lead capture is best-effort: if it fails, the purchase or sign-up still completes. Existing members who book or buy do not generate a new lead. See Public sign-up and checkout.
Website contact form
The contact form on your marketing site captures the inquiry as a lead with source website at the new stage, logs the submitted message on the lead's timeline, and emails your configured company contact address. See Public website.
Guests as a parallel track
Guests are a real, distinct group, not just leads. When a public checkout runs for someone new, Deskie creates a user account (flagged to change password on first login), a credential account so they can eventually log in, and a member profile marked inactive with the role GUEST in the workspace. That inactive-but-present profile is exactly why guests show up in their own bucket: they have purchase history (bookings, passes, event tickets) and a profile, but they are not yet active members.
This means a single new prospect who books a desk online can exist as both a guest (with a real account and purchase history) and a lead (a card in your pipeline). The guest list tracks what they have actually bought and done; the CRM tracks where they are in your sales conversation. See Guests.
Working a lead through the pipeline
Once a lead exists, your team moves it through stages, adds interests, logs notes, and sends emails and texts that are recorded on the lead's timeline. Each workspace has its own set of pipeline stages. Six of them are built-in (new, engaged, follow up, won, lost, and archived) and drive automatic behavior, while custom stages you add participate in the board without triggering the built-in rules.
- Interests and estimated value. Adding an interest tied to an asset can auto-fill the rate from that asset, and the lead's estimated value is recalculated from the sum of its interests. This rolls up into pipeline value reporting.
- Moving to lost. Sending a lead to the lost stage requires a reason. The requirement keys off the underlying system stage, so renaming the lost stage does not bypass it. A lost lead can later be reopened, which returns it to new and clears the lost details.
- Automatic decay. When enabled for the workspace, stale leads drift through the pipeline on their own: new or engaged leads with no activity for about 15 days move to follow up, and follow-up leads untouched for about 30 days move to archived. Activity, manual stage changes, and notes all count as freshness, so actively worked leads are not pulled backward. Turning the decay setting off leaves cards wherever a person put them.
See CRM pipeline for the full pipeline workflow.
Conversion to a member
There are two distinct ways a prospect becomes a member, and they start from different places.
Converting a lead
From the CRM, converting a lead creates a brand-new member using the same member-creation step the admin member form uses. You supply the name, email, optional phone and company, and the location and role to assign. Deskie creates the member, then marks the lead as won, stamps the conversion time, and links the lead to the new member profile so you keep a record of where that member came from. A timeline entry records the conversion. This is the path for prospects who were never a paying guest, such as a tour or waitlist contact.
Converting a guest
From the guest list, converting a guest promotes an account that already exists. Deskie changes the workspace role from GUEST to MEMBER and activates the member profile that was created inactive during checkout. If a guest predates automatic profile creation, a profile is created on the spot. Conversion also sends the onboarding (welcome) email, unless welcome emails are disabled for the workspace. Because the account, profile, and purchase history already exist, the guest's bookings, passes, and event tickets carry straight over to the now-active member. See Managing members and Inviting and onboarding.
From member into billing and access
Once someone is an active member, they leave the funnel and enter day-to-day operations. The active member profile is what the rest of Deskie keys on:
- Billing. The member profile anchors invoices, payments, and auto-charge behavior. A profile that stays inactive (as with an unconverted guest) is precisely why billing screens can read as blank, which is part of why conversion activates the profile. See Billing cycles and auto-charge and Payments and ACH.
- Assignments and memberships. An active member with a profile can be assigned assets and put on plans and memberships, which is what generates recurring charges. See Assignments and Plans and memberships.
- Access. Membership and location roles feed door access and the other access integrations. See Door access overview and Bookings, billing, and access for how purchases connect to entry.
Putting it together
The throughline is simple: early interest from tours, visitors, the waitlist, guest purchases, and your website all converge on the CRM as leads, while public purchasers additionally become guests with real accounts and history. You work those leads through your pipeline, then convert, either a lead into a new member or a guest into an active one. Conversion activates the member profile, and from that point the member flows into billing, assignments, and access. Each link in this chain is best-effort where it should be (lead capture never blocks a sale) and deliberate where it matters (conversion activates billing), so prospects move forward without anything getting stuck or lost.