In construction-focused CRMs, opportunity data doesn’t lose its value once a deal is closed or a bid is declined. Past opportunities often contain critical information—pricing assumptions, scope details, team structures, risk considerations, and client context—that can directly inform future proposals and decision-making.
ProjectMark’s Archive feature is designed to support this reality. Instead of deleting old opportunities or letting them clutter your active pipeline, archiving allows you to separate what’s active from what’s historical, while keeping everything accessible when you need it.
This article explains why archiving matters, how to think about Active vs Archived opportunities, and how ProjectMark approaches archiving differently from traditional CRMs—especially in the context of construction workflows and go / no-go decisions.
Why Archiving Matters in Construction Workflows
Construction firms don’t operate on short, transactional sales cycles. Opportunities can span months, involve multiple bid revisions, or be paused indefinitely before resurfacing. Even opportunities that don’t move forward often contain insights that remain valuable long after the decision is made.
Archiving allows you to:
- Keep your active opportunity board focused and readable
- Preserve historical opportunity data without deleting it
- Reuse information from past bids and pursuits
- Maintain visibility into what was pursued, won, lost, or intentionally stopped
Deleting opportunities removes that context entirely. Archiving keeps it available without interfering with day-to-day work.
Active vs Archived Opportunities: How to Think About Them
In ProjectMark, Active and Archived are not indicators of importance—they’re indicators of current relevance.
- Active opportunities are those your team is actively working on, reviewing, or updating.
- Archived opportunities are completed, paused, closed, or intentionally not pursued items that no longer require daily attention but may still be referenced.
This separation helps teams stay focused while ensuring nothing is lost.
If an opportunity is no longer being worked on but may still be useful for:
- Future proposals
- Pricing comparisons
- Client or market history
- Internal reviews or lessons learned
…it belongs in the archive, not deleted.
Archiving vs Deleting: Why the Difference Matters
Many CRMs treat closed or lost opportunities as disposable. In construction, this creates long-term problems:
- Past bids become hard to find
- Teams lose visibility into why decisions were made
- Historical pricing and scope context disappears
- Similar opportunities are rebuilt from scratch
ProjectMark’s archiving approach ensures that:
- Opportunities remain searchable and accessible
- Files, notes, financials, and team data stay intact
- Historical context is preserved across projects and pursuits
Archived opportunities remain part of your institutional knowledge, not hidden or removed.
Using Archived Opportunities as a Strategic Resource
Archived opportunities are often most valuable after they’re closed.
Teams regularly reference archived opportunities to:
- Review previous scopes or assumptions
- Compare estimates across similar project types
- Reuse language, files, or team structures
- Understand why a bid was successful or unsuccessful
Because archived opportunities remain accessible, they support better decision-making on new pursuits without cluttering the active pipeline.
Archiving and Go / No-Go Decisions
Archiving also plays an important role in go / no-go decision-making. In construction, not every opportunity is meant to move forward—and understanding why certain pursuits were stopped is just as important as tracking the ones that were won.
By archiving opportunities that were evaluated and intentionally not pursued, teams can:
- Preserve the reasoning behind past go / no-go decisions
- Reference constraints such as risk, capacity, location, or margin
- Avoid revisiting opportunities that don’t align with company strategy
- Improve consistency in future bid qualification
Rather than losing this context or leaving stalled opportunities in active views, archiving allows teams to document decisions without cluttering the pipeline. Over time, archived go / no-go opportunities become a valuable reference for refining qualification criteria and improving bid discipline.
Automatic Archiving and Team Consistency
Archiving can be managed manually or automatically, depending on how your organization works.
Automatic archiving helps ensure:
- Consistent data management across teams
- A clean opportunity board without manual cleanup
- A shared standard for when opportunities move out of active views
Instead of relying on individual habits, automatic archiving supports a unified approach to opportunity lifecycle management.
A Cleaner Board Without Losing Visibility
As teams grow, opportunity boards can quickly become overcrowded. Too many outdated or inactive opportunities in active views make it harder to:
- Identify current priorities
- Review pipeline health
- Collaborate efficiently
Archiving solves this without sacrificing access. You keep your opportunity board focused on what’s active while retaining the ability to search, filter, and review historical data whenever needed.
When to Look in Archived Opportunities
If you can’t find an opportunity you’re looking for:
- Check whether you’re viewing Active or Archived opportunities
- Consider whether the opportunity was completed, paused, lost, or stopped at a go / no-go decision
Archived opportunities are not gone—they’re simply removed from the active workflow.
Learn More About Archiving in ProjectMark
ProjectMark provides additional guided content to help you understand and apply archiving based on how you work and what you need to accomplish.
If you want to see how archived opportunities are organized and accessed, the guided video The Archived Board Explained walks through how archived opportunities and projects are displayed, how they differ from active records, and how to navigate historical data without affecting your active pipeline.
If you want to control when opportunities and projects are archived, the guided flow How to Configure Automatic Archiving for Opportunities and Projects shows how to set up automatic archiving rules. This guide is useful for teams that want consistent lifecycle management across users and prefer not to rely on manual cleanup.
