Analytics - Opportunities with Multiple Products

[MrStephenM]

Hi there -

What are the best practices around analytics with opportunities with multiple products?  Example:  Opportunity XYZ opened Jan 1 and the salesperson added Products P1, P2, and P3 to that opportunity that day.  3 weeks later the purchaser says - I want products P1 and P2, and will get you a purchase order today, but I do not want product P3.

If the salesperson removes P3 from the opportunity, how can I track that P3 was a part of that opportunity, but the buyer said "no" to it?

If the salesperson marks the existing opporunity as Closed Lost (with all three products), creates a new opportunity with just P1 and P2, and then marks that new opportunity as Closed Won, it makes it look like it took 0 days to win that opportunity, when in fact they had been working with the buyer since Jan 1?

And, any reports that tried to show the close rate for opporunities that include Product P3 would give misleading results. 

Surely someone has solved this issue, or I'm overlooking something obvious about working with multiple products.

Thanks for any ideas or process suggestions.

Steve

[Stevemo]

Create a custom Opportunity Product field to identify that the Product was not purchased/delievered, and drop the Line Item Price to $0.00.  Unfortunately you cannot drop the Quantity to 0, but the steps above should help you split sold from unsold Opportunity Products.