Value confirmation

Editing a variable and confirming it are two different gestures in valueIQ. Editing changes the number. Confirming records that someone, you or the customer, stands behind the number as it is. This page covers how to confirm, what the provenance badges mean, and how to check a story before you present it.

Before you start. You need a deal with a customer model, and for confirming from a story, a value story on that deal. Customer partners confirm from the shared story; see Sharing with the buyer.

Set versus confirm

Every variable in the business case has a value and a history. Setting a value writes a new entry. Confirming writes an attestation: a stamped entry that says the current value was checked, by whom, and how. The attestation flows into the variable's provenance badge and into how the story resolves the number it shows.

The distinction matters in the room. "The customer's cost per ticket is $40" and "the customer confirmed their cost per ticket is $40" are different claims, and the economic buyer will treat them differently. Confirmation lets the business case show which is which, variable by variable.

The six provenance states

Each variable in a story shows a badge with one of six states. Hover for a plain-language explanation.

Market default. The value came from market research and nobody has changed it.
Derived. The value is calculated from other variables.
Seller-set. You entered the value.
Seller-confirmed. You confirmed the current value.
Customer-explored. The customer partner changed the value while working through the story, without confirming it.
Customer-confirmed. The customer partner confirmed the value.

The badge is projected live from the variable's history, so it changes the moment a new entry lands. Screen readers announce the change.

Confirm from the deal page

Open the Customer Model panel on the deal and go to the Variables tab.
Find the variable row and click Confirm value.

This records a seller attestation on the current value.

Confirm from a story

Open the story and click the variable.
Click Confirm value in the edit dialog.

As the seller, this records a seller attestation. When an invited customer partner does the same from their side, it records an authenticated customer confirmation, which is what the customer-confirmed badge means. Confirmations made through the Deal Copilot or an MCP client are honoured the same way.

Correct a confirmation

To change a confirmed value, confirm again with the new value. Confirmations are supersession-only: the new entry supersedes the old one, and the full history is kept. There is no way to unconfirm a variable back to nothing, which is deliberate. A business case should never quietly lose the record of what was agreed.

Review before presenting

Before you show a story, open its controls menu → Review before presenting…. For each variable the dialog shows the current reading next to the confirmed reading. Where the customer has moved a value away from what they confirmed, a Diverging chip flags it.

The dialog also shows each variable's exploration trajectory, newest first. When a customer partner edits a value in the story, valueIQ records it as an exploration rather than a confirmation. If they pushed a number to 80,000 and then settled at 60,000, you can see that path. It is a buying signal, and it stays on your side; nothing changes on the customer's view.

The default reading toggle

At the top of the review dialog, choose whether the story reads confirmed or current values by default.

Confirmed. Each variable resolves to its latest confirmed entry. The number beside a "Confirmed by customer" badge can never silently reflect a later unconfirmed exploration.
Current. Each variable resolves to its latest entry of any kind. This is the default behaviour.

Saving merges your choice over any per-variable overrides already on the story without overwriting them.

Tip. Switch the story to confirmed values before an executive review. Anything still marked Diverging is a question to settle with the customer before the meeting, not during it.