What is Hive CRM?
Hive CRM is a workspace app inside Hive for managing commercial relationships — accounts, people, opportunities, and the work that follows from them.
Unlike a standalone CRM you bolt onto project management, Hive CRM lives in the same workspace as your actions, projects, notes, meetings, and email.
That means sales, customer success, and delivery teams can track pipeline and customer context without switching tools.
In short: Hive CRM helps you answer: Who are we working with? What's in the pipeline? What needs to happen next — and where does that work live in Hive?
Who is Hive CRM for?
Hive CRM is useful if your team needs to:
Track accounts and contacts — prospects, customers, partners, and vendors in one place
Manage a sales pipeline — opportunities with stages, amounts, owners, and close dates
Plan outreach — campaigns and email/call sequences for targeted follow-up
Scope and propose work — estimates and proposals tied to accounts and deals
Connect CRM to execution — link accounts and opportunities to Hive projects and actions
See pipeline health at a glance — configurable home dashboards and reporting widgets
How CRM connects to the rest of Hive
Hive CRM's main advantage is that it composes with existing Hive work:
Hive feature | CRM connection |
Actions | Link accounts, opportunities, or people to any action from the action panel |
Projects | Link projects to accounts and opportunities; accepting a proposal creates a delivery project automatically |
Notes | Attach notes to accounts for shared customer memory |
Goals | Link goals to campaigns |
Dashboards | CRM Insights uses dashboard widgets for pipeline reporting |
Link email threads to accounts; admins can backfill recent mail into CRM | |
Meetings | Link calendar meetings to CRM records |
Example workflow:
Create account + opportunity in CRM
Link related actions for follow-up tasks
Run a sequence for outbound touchpoints
Accept a proposal → Hive creates a delivery project (or link an existing project)
Delivery team works the project with full account context
Who can access CRM?
Workspace admins control CRM access under Workspace settings → Apps → CRM:
Everyone in the workspace (with CRM permission), or
Selected people only
Users without CRM access cannot open the app. External users do not have CRM access.
Add CRM seats when you save access
Each person you give CRM access uses one CRM seat. If you select more people than your organization has seats, Hive can add the seats for you.
Open Workspace settings → Apps → CRM.
Under Access, select Specific users.
In Users, select the people, then close the list. Hive saves all your choices together.
If you need more seats, the Confirm billing impact window opens. It shows the seats you need, the seats you have, and the price per seat.
Select the check box, then Add seats.
Hive charges your card now for the rest of the current billing period, then saves the access. Cancel changes nothing.
If your card is declined, Hive adds no seats and does not save the access. Select Update payment method to open your billing page.
Only organization admins can add seats this way, and only on monthly or yearly plans paid by card. Otherwise you see a message that the change needs more CRM seats than your organization has. Select fewer users, or select Purchase more.
Getting started
CRM Settings
Open Workspace settings → Apps → CRM to manage CRM settings:
From there, you'll be able to control who has access to specific information in the CRM. You can also import email threads and calendar meetings to better build out your CRM instance.
Some other ways to import data into CRM:
Use Import CSV to bring in:
Accounts (companies)
People (contacts)
Opportunities (pipeline)
Hive shows a summary of created and updated records after import. Home dashboard widgets refresh as data comes in.
You can also import from HubSpot-style CSV exports if columns match Hive's supported import fields. Workspace admins can connect Salesforce or HubSpot for a 90-day backfill and recurring sync.
For full steps and column details, see Import data into Hive CRM.
Or create records manually:
Accounts → Create account (name, type, lifecycle stage)
People → Create person and link to an account
Opportunities → Create opportunity (stage, amount, owner, close date)
Explore with sample data
Turning on CRM does not add any records. A new CRM starts empty. To look around before you add your own records, you can load example accounts, contacts, and deals.
Load sample data
On the CRM Insights (Home) page, under Not ready to add your own?, select Load sample data.
You can also select Load sample data on an empty Accounts, People, or Opportunities page.
The button shows only while your CRM has no records of its own. After you import or create a record, it goes away.
While sample data is in your CRM
Sample records are marked Sample.
Each CRM page shows the banner You're exploring sample data. Totals on the page include the sample records.
Remove sample data
In the banner, select Remove sample data. Hive deletes all the sample records in one step. Anything you added to a sample record is deleted too.
Anyone with CRM access can load or remove sample data.
Core features in detail
Accounts
An account is a company or organization — prospect, customer, partner, investor, vendor, or former customer.
Each account has:
Type — e.g. Prospect, Customer, Partner
Lifecycle stage — e.g. Target, Engaged, Onboarding, Active, Expansion, Renewal, At risk, Churned
Open an account to see tabs such as:
Overview — key details and linked records
Team — people at the account
Projects — Hive projects linked to the account
Actions — linked Hive actions
Notes — shared account notes
Activity — calls, meetings, and email threads linked to the account, in one list
Files — materials attached to the account
You can filter accounts (all, prospects, customers, partners, missing domain), save views, reorder columns in those views, and export to CSV.
People
People are contacts — decision-makers, champions, and stakeholders at your accounts.
Create people manually or via import
Link people to one or more accounts
Open a person sheet from the grid for quick details
Enroll people in sequences for structured follow-up
Website contact forms — embed a CRM contact form on your website to add leads to People automatically. See Capture leads from your website with CRM contact forms.
Opportunities
Opportunities are deals in your pipeline.
Track:
Stage — by default: Prospecting → Discovery → Qualification → Evaluation → Proposal → Negotiation → Selected → Dormant → Won/Lost. Your workspace can customize pipeline stage names.
Forecast category — Pipeline, Upside, Best case, Commit, Closed, Omitted
Amount, owner, and close date
From an opportunity you can:
Link actions and meetings
See calls, meetings, and email threads in one list on the Activity tab, and log calls there
Create or link a delivery project — accepting a proposal creates a delivery project automatically (retry with Create delivery project if needed), or link an existing Hive project. See Create or link a delivery project from CRM.
Meetings
The Meetings section shows meetings that have started and have content. Content is anything saved on the meeting, such as notes, a transcript or recording, a summary, prep, or next steps. A meeting that you add with Create meeting always shows. Upcoming meetings and meetings with no content do not show, also when you select a date range that includes future dates.
You see meetings that you are invited to, meetings shared with you, and meetings linked to a CRM account or opportunity (unless the meeting is set to attendees only).
To see upcoming meetings, open the Activity tab on an account, opportunity, or person. Upcoming meetings are at the top of the list, with the soonest first. They have the label Upcoming. Past calls, meetings, and email threads are below them, with the newest first. To link a meeting to an account or opportunity, select Link meeting on its Activity tab. This keeps customer conversations tied to the correct records.
Workspace admins can also run meeting backfill in CRM settings to import recent calendar events into CRM context.
Log a call
You can record a call that you made outside Hive, for example from your own phone. You can also record attempts and voicemails.
Open an account, opportunity, or person, then select the Activity tab.
Select Log call.
Select the Outcome: Answered, No answer, Voicemail, or Bad number. Make sure that Direction and When are correct.
Optional: add contacts in People, the teammates who were on the call in Your team, an Opportunity, and Notes. On a person page, the contacts field is Other people. On an opportunity page, the Opportunity field does not show.
Optional: in Follow-up, enter the next step and a due date. Hive adds an action for you to My Actions and links it to the same CRM records.
Select Log call.
The call shows in the Activity list of each record that it is linked to.
Edit or delete a call
To change a call that someone logged by hand, open the menu (⋯) on its row and select Edit. Make your changes, then select Save. To remove the call, select Delete, then select Delete again to confirm. This removes the call from every record that it is linked to. Anyone with CRM access can edit or delete these calls. Calls that Hive recorded, such as dialer or sequence calls, do not have these options.
Campaigns
Campaigns help you plan outreach to a defined audience — useful for launches, nurture programs, or targeted sales pushes.
Set a campaign name and objective
Build your audience from CRM accounts and people
Link campaigns to Goals for measurable outcomes
Export campaigns and save filtered views
Outbound copy in campaigns can be approval-gated before sending.
For step-by-step instructions, see Create and run a CRM campaign.
Sequences
Sequences are reusable follow-up flows — email steps and call-mail steps you can enroll people into.
Create a sequence with multiple steps
Enroll people from campaigns or individually
Track sequence status and analytics
Sequences support planned outreach; they are not a full marketing automation platform.
See a sequence's calls
If a sequence has a Call + email step, its page shows a Calls section with four counts:
Calls made
Picked up — with its share of calls made
Voicemail
Booked
Below the counts, a table lists each call: Person, When, Result (Picked up, Voicemail, No answer, Bad number, or Failed), and Outcome (for example, Booked or Qualified).
To read a call, select its row or its Transcript icon. A window opens with the call summary and the full transcript.
The section shows the 200 most recent calls, and the counts cover those calls. You need CRM access in the sequence's workspace to see it.
Estimates & Proposals
Estimates — price each opportunity by hours, fixed price or fee, and check gross margin. See Build a CRM estimate for an opportunity.
Proposals — organize source materials (PDFs, text files) and build proposal content, including reusable snippets and AI-assisted outline generation. You can also send, share, and sign a proposal (acceptance link, DocuSign, review on an action card, and download PDF).
Useful for agencies and services teams scoping work before a deal closes or during proposal stages.
Create a proposal
Open CRM, select Proposals, then select New proposal.
Under Start from, choose one of your Word templates, No template (Hive designs it), or Add template. A new proposal starts from the template your last proposal used.
Under Proposal details, enter the Proposal title, Account, Opportunity, Owner, and Due date. Link the opportunity to start from its pricing.
Optional: under Add what the client sent, select Choose files to add one or more source files (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or text), and paste any Source text. Hive reads all of it for requirements.
Select Create proposal.
Hive checks the opportunity and anything the client sent, then drafts the proposal. Anything Hive still needs from you shows as a Word comment on a [bracketed] part.
Word templates (workspace admins): open Workspace settings → Apps and find Document templates in the CRM settings. Select Add template and choose a Word file (.docx). Hive keeps your design and writes each [bracketed] part. You can add Instructions for Hive when you add a template, or later with Instructions on its row. Remove takes a template off the list, and the file stays in Files.
Redraft: after the first draft, select Redraft in the proposal header and, if you want, describe What to change. If a customer requested changes on a shared proposal, their request is already filled in. See Send, share, and sign a proposal.
CRM Insights & reporting
When you open CRM, you land on Opportunities by default. Select Insights (Home) for pipeline reporting:
Import-first panel when the workspace is new, with a Load sample data option (see Explore with sample data)
Configurable dashboard widgets — add CRM report widgets from the Insights menu
Pipeline Coach (AI) — summary of pipeline risks, opportunities, and recommended next steps when you have pipeline data
Filter and save views on list pages (Accounts, People, Opportunities, Campaigns) and export matching data to CSV.
Reorder table columns in saved views
Arrange CRM table columns so the fields you use most often stay in a consistent place across saved views on Accounts, People, Opportunities, and Campaigns.
Open Accounts, People, Opportunities, or Campaigns in Hive CRM.
Drag a column header to the position you want.
Save or update the view to keep the new order.
You need CRM access and permission to write to the saved view. The saved view stores the column arrangement for the next time you open it.
Want to try CRM?
Workspace admins on a paid Hive plan can try CRM free for 14 days. A new CRM starts empty. To look around first, load sample data.
Start a free trial
In the left sidebar, select App Library.
In the CRM section, turn on CRM.
In the Try CRM free for 14 days window, select Start free trial.
CRM turns on right away. If no one has a CRM seat yet, you get the first one. To give other people access, see Who can access CRM?
Each organization can try CRM once. If your organization had CRM before, you see Turn on CRM? with the price, and billing starts when you turn it on.
When the trial ends
CRM stays on after 14 days. Hive then bills your subscription for each CRM seat.
To stop before you're charged, go to App Library and turn CRM off before the 14 days end.