Set up Rules of Engagement for your team

Last updated: October 8, 2026

What you'll accomplish: by the end of this article, every rep you choose will have an accurate, auto-populated Book of Business, and Unify will warn or block them before they reach out to an account that isn't theirs.

👉 Open Engagement Policies to follow along as you set this up.

Before you start

  • Connect your CRM (Salesforce or HubSpot) if you haven't already.

  • Know your ownership field. Most teams use the standard Account Owner field, but some use a custom field (like "Sales Owner" or "BDR Owner"). Confirm this with whoever manages your CRM; it's the single most common setup mistake.

  • Decide if you need more than one policy. A policy can only reference one ownership field. If your BDRs and AEs are tracked in separate fields, you'll need a separate policy for each group.

Step 1: Choose who this policy covers

From Engagement Policies, click Create, then:

  1. Choose your CRM: Salesforce or HubSpot.

  2. Name the policy (for example, "AEs" or "West Coast BDRs").

  3. Select the reps it applies to. Filter by job function to move faster, or toggle on users who aren't in Unify yet.

Step 2: Set the rules for accounts already in your CRM

This is the core of the policy: how ownership is defined, and what reps can do with accounts they don't own.

  • Pick the ownership field. Use the standard field, or select a custom one. Click "Set this up for me" and Unify creates the CRM mapping automatically, with two-way sync: a claim in Unify writes back to your CRM, and vice versa.

  • Decide if reps can claim accounts beyond their own. If yes, define the pool (a common approach: anything sitting under a generic "house" or manager account), and optionally narrow it further by territory or region.

  • Decide if ownership is required before engaging. Most teams require it; some allow one-off outreach without a claim (useful for event-based touches).

  • Decide what happens when a teammate already owns the account:

    • Allow, with a warning: the rep sees who owns it and must confirm before proceeding.

    • Block: only the owner can engage it.

    • Most managers start with Block, then switch to the warning option once they realize it still requires the rep to see and acknowledge the warning. It's rarely a silent free-for-all.

  • Decide how long an inactive account stays protected. Either it stays with its owner indefinitely, or it becomes claimable by another rep after a set number of days of inactivity (90 days is common). The original owner never loses it automatically; it just becomes available if nobody's working it.

Step 3: Set the rules for accounts not yet in your CRM

This covers new companies Unify surfaces (from web visits, enrichment, or the Chrome extension) that don't have an Account record yet.

  • Choose what's claimable: any company, only companies matching criteria you define (like a minimum employee count), or none.

  • Choose whether claiming is required before engaging. If you require it, claiming happens automatically the moment a rep takes action, with no separate step for them.

Step 4: Add your exclusions

Any global exclusions you already had will show up here. For each one, choose Allow, Warn, or Block.

Tip: "Warn" is often the best balance: it stops automations from running against excluded accounts by default, without fully locking reps out if they have a good reason to reach out.

Excluded accounts still appear in a rep's Book of Business; the exclusion only affects whether they can be engaged. And if a rep is in a policy, this exclusion setting overrides any conflicting Sequence Ruleset exclusion they'd otherwise have.

Step 5: Review and activate

Confirm your selections, then create the policy. Each rep's Book of Business is provisioned immediately. You can click into any rep's book from the policy page at any time to check it looks right, without needing them to screen-share.

Pair it with Book Rankings and Intel

Rules of Engagement determines who owns what. Two more settings determine how a rep's book is prioritized once they're looking at it:

  • Book Rankings: choose which signals (fit, timing, history, intent) matter most when ranking accounts inside a rep's book.

  • Intel: turn on auto-generated account research and outreach recommendations.

If these aren't available on your account yet, that's expected; they're still rolling out to more teams.

Good to know

  • There's no cap on book size today: A rep can claim as many open, eligible accounts as they act on. If equitable distribution matters to your team, manage it as a process for now (for example, running one centralized distribution); a cap is on the roadmap.

  • Full-cycle reps and current customers: excluding current customers from outreach doesn't hide them from Book of Business. They'll still appear, and may even rank high if they're highly engaged. Setting that exclusion to Warn rather than Block works well for reps who manage existing accounts alongside new ones.

  • A "false" block is sometimes just a sync delay. If a rep reports being blocked from an account that was just reassigned to them, check whether the CRM change has actually synced yet before assuming the policy is wrong.

Related articles

  • Understanding Rules of Engagement and Book of Business

  • Working your Book of Business (for your reps)

  • Rules of Engagement & Book of Business: FAQ