SOP 275: GoHighLevel Best Practices & Maintenance
This SOP enforces simple naming conventions, close/archive records, and clear unassigned or duplicated records in GoHighLevel.
Last Updated / Reviewed: 11/13/2025
Execution Time: 30–60 minutes initial; 20–30 minutes weekly
🚀 Goal: Keep GoHighLevel pipelines clean, standardized, and actionable for accurate reporting.
🤞 Ideal Outcome: Consistent naming across pipelines, stages and opportunities with low unassigned and duplicate rates and clear closed won or lost end pipeline stages.
🤔 Why this is important: Simple, consistent structure improves adoption, keeps reports trustworthy, and reduces time spent firefighting messy data.
🧐 Where this is done GoHighLevel sub-account.
🗓️ When this is done: Initial cleanup once; then weekly (20–30 min), monthly, and quarterly check ins.
👨 Who does this: Account admin or sales ops with permission to manage pipelines, opportunities and contacts.
__⚠️Prerequisites or requirements: __You need admin access to the GoHighLevel sub-account to manage pipelines, opportunities and contacts.
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Standardize pipeline and stage names
This milestone cleans up your GoHighLevel pipelines so every salesperson works from the same, consistent view. Using a single naming pattern for pipelines and numeric prefixes on stages keeps reports reliable and ensures stages always display in the correct order.
01▸ Go to "Opportunities" → "Pipelines" and click "+ Create Pipeline".
02▸ Edit the pipeline name to “Sales – [Offer/BU]” and click "Create".
Confirm the updated name appears exactly as “Sales – [Offer/BU]” in the "Pipelines" list.
03▸ Add and rename stages with numeric prefixes: 01 Lead In; 02 Discovery; 03 Qualified; 04 Proposal Sent; 05 Negotiation; 06 Closed Won; 07 Closed Lost.
04▸ Confirm each stage shows the prefix and correct sequence from left to right in the "Opportunities" board view.
Note: Every quarter, you can opt to rename unused test pipelines to “ZZ – [Name]” and then hide or disable them in "Pipelines". Do this by unticking the boxes below:
Create and edit filtered views in Opportunities
01▸ Click on "Opportunities", then click the "List View" icon (it looks like three horizontal lines). This gives you a spreadsheet-style table with columns for deal name, stage, owner, amount, etc.
02▸ Next, click "Advanced Filters" (funnel icon). Use the available options to narrow down your view. You can filter by:
- Pipeline – Choose which pipeline you want to view.
- Stage – Select one or more stages (e.g., “Contacted”, “Proposal Sent”).
- Status – e.g., Open, Won, Lost, Abandoned.
- Owner – Filter by assigned user or sales rep.
- Date Range – e.g., “Created This Month”.
- Custom Fields – Filter by your own deal attributes (e.g., region, deal type).
03▸ If you want to change the view, click the "Advanced Filter" button again and hit "clear all filters" or modify the conditions.
Create potential duplicates view and merge in Contacts
This milestone helps you spot and merge duplicate contacts in GoHighLevel, keeping your database clean and preventing errors from split activity or mis-assigned opportunities. You’ll create a “Potential Duplicates” view, check it weekly, and merge small batches while keeping the most accurate record.
01▸ Go to "Contacts" and click on "Columns". Tick "Name", "Created", “Email”, "Last Activity", “Phone”, and “Tags".
02▸ Confirm that the columns are visible in the table.
03▸ Now, click on "More Filters" and sort by “Email”. Enter the business domain, e.g. clickminded.com. Click "Apply".
04▸ Name the smart list as “potential duplicate” and click "Save".
05▸ Confirm that the “potential duplicates” tap appears on the smart list.
06▸ Select 2–3 suspected duplicates and click the "Merge" icon.
07▸ In the merge contacts window, keep the record with the most recent activity, the correct owner, and the correct opportunity stage. Click "Merge Contact".
08▸ After merging, search for the contact’s name or email in "Contacts". You should find only one record with the correct owner and linked opportunity.
Run weekly hygiene in Opportunities
This milestone keeps your GoHighLevel pipeline accurate by assigning unowned deals, closing out stale ones, and moving wins to the right stage. Weekly hygiene prevents clutter, keeps reports clean, and makes sure opportunities don’t slip.
01▸ Go to "Opportunities" and open the "Unassigned (Weekly)" board. Select the opportunities and click "Edit".
02▸ Set the default owner and click "Save".
03▸ Refresh the page. Each selected opportunity now displays the chosen owner.
04▸ Now, click "Advanced Filters", select "Last change stage date", then "Last 7 Days" (or x days you want) and click "Apply".
05▸ Select these opportunities and move to stage "Closed Lost" for items with no stage change after 7 days.
06▸ Now, change the filter to "Last status change date", then "Last 30 Days" (or x days you want) and click "Apply".
07▸ Select these opportunities and move to stage "Closed Lost" for items with no status change after 30 days.
08▸ Move opportunities to "Closed Won" only with a signed agreement/payment confirmed.
09▸ Confirm pipeline shows zero "Unassigned" and reduced stale count.
Go back to "Opportunities" and check the "Unassigned (Weekly)" views. They should now be empty or much smaller, showing only valid active opportunities.