Keeping a pipeline current is one of the hardest parts of managing an M&A process — deals go quiet, and nobody notices until weeks have passed. The Last Activity field gives every deal a timestamp of the most recent action taken on it, along with a simple color indicator that shows you, at a glance, which deals are actively worked and which are going stale.
Where you’ll find it
Last Activity appears in two places:
Pipeline Table view — as a sortable, filterable column. Each cell shows a colored dot and the date and time of the most recent activity on that deal.
Deal details — in the “Deal overview” section at the top of the deal card, next to the start date.
Deals with no recorded activity show a dash (–).
What the colors mean
The dot next to each date reflects how many days have passed since the deal was last touched:
Status | Days since last activity | Color |
Active | 0–30 days | 🟢 Green |
Cooling | 31–45 days | 🟡 Amber |
Stale | More than 45 days | 🔴 Red |
Hover over the dot to see the deal’s current status, exactly how many days it has been idle, and when it will move to the next status.
The colors update automatically as time passes — no action is needed to refresh them.
What counts as activity
Last Activity updates whenever someone on your team takes a real action on the deal:
Editing a deal field (only actual changes count — saving a field without changing it does not)
Moving the deal to a different phase
Adding or updating a note
Creating, completing, or deleting a deal task
Linking or removing a contact
Linking or removing an attachment
Logging an email to the deal
Renaming the deal
What doesn’t count: automated system updates — such as data enrichment — do not affect Last Activity, so the timestamp always reflects work by a person, not background processes. Work inside the deal’s room (uploading documents, completing diligence tasks, Q&A) also does not currently update the deal’s Last Activity.
Finding stale deals with sorting and filters
The Last Activity column is built for pipeline triage:
Sort the column to bring your quietest deals to the top.
Filter with “Older than” to show only deals untouched for a chosen number of days, weeks, or months — for example, “Older than 45 days” surfaces every stale deal in one click.
Filter with a date range to review activity within a specific window.
💡 Tip: Combine an “Older than” filter with a saved custom view to create a permanent “Needs attention” list your team can review in weekly pipeline meetings. See How do I create a custom view in the Pipeline?
Frequently asked questions
Why do my existing deals already show a Last Activity date? When the feature was enabled, DealRoom reconstructed each deal’s most recent activity from its full audit history — so the dates are accurate from day one, even for deals created long before the feature existed.
Can I change the 30-day and 45-day thresholds? Not currently. The thresholds are based on research into how M&A teams work and apply to all deals. If your team would benefit from different thresholds, let us know — we’re actively gathering feedback.
My on-hold or long-term deals show as Stale. Is that expected? Yes — the indicator currently treats all deals the same, regardless of status. For deals that are parked on purpose, we recommend filtering them out of your working views using your deal status field.