what is Forecast

Forecast

Predict sales revenue and quantities from your opportunity pipeline, and incorporate product families, opportunity splits, and custom opportunity currency fields if needed. Forecasts can include adjustments made by forecast managers to their immediate subordinates' forecasts as well as adjustments made by forecast users to their own forecast amounts.

Your administrator can enable up to 4 different types of forecasts for your organization simultaneously. For example, you might want to forecast on revenue from opportunities as well as quantities by product family. You can switch between forecast types by clicking the forecast name and choosing another forecast from the pop-up menu. Each type of forecast stores its own separate quota and adjustment data.

 

Users can view forecast amounts and their related opportunities by forecast rollup for an individual or for everyone below them in the forecast hierarchy. For example, they can see the July Best Case forecast for all the sales managers who report to them, all the sales reps who report to any one of their managers, or just one individual. Users can also adjust their own forecasts and the forecasts of subordinates one level beneath them. The user interface makes it simple to conduct status calls with an opportunity team because users can move around it with ease.

Use the flexibility of Collaborative Forecasts to perform many tasks.

• Select and view forecasts using an interactive, expandable table.
• See forecast summary information for single months or quarters, and a multi-month or quarter range, for each forecast rollup.
• If your organization uses product families, see forecast summaries for each product family.
• If your organization uses opportunity splits, see the split percentages and the split amounts that contribute to each forecast.
• View and use the list of opportunities related to each forecast amount you select. Access opportunity details directly from this list.
• Hover and click on a column boundary and adjust the width to view data more easily.
• Make adjustments, and view adjustment details, such as the original forecast amount and who made the adjustment. If you have more than one type of forecast enabled, each forecast type maintains its own separate adjustments.
• If you’re a forecast manager, move up and down through the forecasts hierarchy easily.
• View revenue- or quantity-based forecasts.
• View forecasts in multiple currencies.
• View quota information on each user’s forecast page. If your organization has more than one type of forecast enabled, each forecast type maintains its own separate quota information.
• Use Collaborative Forecasts reports.
• Include the opportunities of your partner portal users in your forecasts.