Fields the form must capture
The minimum viable deal registration form has eight fields. More than ten kills submission rates; fewer than eight creates ambiguity:
- Customer legal entity name and primary domain
- Primary contact name, title, and email
- Estimated deal value (range buckets, not free text)
- Expected close timeframe (quarter)
- Sales stage (introduction / qualified / proposal / negotiation)
- Compelling event or context (free text, capped at 500 characters)
- Products of interest
- Partner contact and registration date
Optional fields that add value if you can keep total under ten: incumbent vendor being displaced, expected ACV, geography.
Eligibility rules (the protection logic)
A submission becomes a registered deal only if it passes eligibility checks. The five standard rules:
- Customer is not in the vendor CRM as an active opportunity owned by direct sales. If they are, the registration is rejected.
- Customer has not been contacted by direct outbound in the last 60 days. If they have, registration may be rejected at vendor discretion.
- Customer is not on the Approved Channel Account List as a named protected direct account.
- The same customer is not already registered by another partner. First in time wins, based on timestamp.
- The deal value meets the minimum (typically $5K ACV). This prevents partners from spamming registrations for tiny deals.
Communicate eligibility decisions back to the submitting partner within 48 hours. Slow response erodes trust faster than rejection.
Protection period (the 90-day rule)
An approved registration is protected for 90 days from approval date. During this window: the partner has exclusive right to pursue, the vendor's direct team will not engage the prospect on this opportunity, and the partner earns standard commission on closed-won.
If the deal does not close in 90 days, the partner may request a 60-day extension with evidence of active engagement (recent meetings, sent proposal, etc.). Open-ended extensions kill the urgency that makes the protection valuable. After two extensions, the registration expires and the lead returns to the pool.
Conflict scenarios and how to handle them
The three scenarios that produce 90 percent of channel conflict:
- Direct team and partner both pursuing the same prospect. If partner registered first and registration was approved, partner wins. If direct had active opportunity prior to registration, partner registration is rejected. Document the decision so both parties see the same evidence.
- Two partners registering the same prospect. First in time wins by timestamp. The losing partner is notified and may be offered an alternative role (technical support, co-sell) if the winning partner accepts.
- Partner registered the deal but customer prefers to buy direct. Honor the customer's preference; pay the originating partner a referral commission (typically 50 percent of standard channel margin) to preserve the relationship.
Tooling: form, PRM, or both
Small programs (under 20 active partners) can run deal registration on a Google Form pointing at a tracking sheet. Programs above that need a partner portal with a real registration workflow, status visibility for the submitting partner, and audit trail. The PRM software category (Crossbeam, PartnerStack, Allbound, Impartner) exists primarily to solve this problem. The Reseller pack includes the spec for the form whether you build it in Typeform, your portal, or commercial PRM.