Salesforce Forecasting: Evolution, Implementation and Best Practices, Christine Marshall
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The document provides an overview of Salesforce forecasting, detailing its evolution, features, and best practices for implementation. It highlights the importance of accurate forecasting in making critical business decisions and outlines specific steps for setting up forecasting within Salesforce. Additionally, the document emphasizes the significance of data quality, process standardization, and user adoption to ensure successful forecasting outcomes.
Salesforce Forecasting: Evolution, Implementation and Best Practices, Christine Marshall
- 1. Salesforce Forecasting: Evolution, Implementation and Best Practices
- 2. #CD2023 @CzechDreami n Courses Director at Salesforce Ben 4 x Salesforce MVP 10 x Certified Bristol Salesforce Admin Community Group Leader Supermums Mentor Christine Marshall
- 3. #CD2023 @CzechDreami n ● The What ● The Why ● The Features ● The How ● The Best Practices Agenda
- 4. The What & The Why
- 5. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin The process of making predictions of future sales based on past and present data. Predicts different values such as revenue or volume of products. Forecasting impacts business critical decisions: ● Company outlay ● Defining budgets and targets ● How much stock to order or build ● Identify gaps in the sales pipeline What is Forecasting?
- 6. #CD2023 @CzechDreami n ● It comes out-of-the-box ● Increase ROI on your Salesforce implementation ● Reduce the need for spreadsheets ● Your CRM is where you typically store your real-time sales data ● A powerful, dynamic, consolidated view ● Single source of truth ● Flexible to the needs of any business ● Easily customizable using clicks not code Why use Salesforce for Forecasting?
- 7. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin The History of Salesforce Forecasting 2021 - Now Collaborative Forecasting gets a ton of cool new features 2020 Customizable Forecasting retired in Summer ‘20 2012 “Forecasts” released (will become Collaborative Forecasting) A long time ago… Customizable Forecasting
- 8. The Features
- 9. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Salesforce Forecasting Overview
- 12. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Forecasting Date Range
- 13. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Forecast Types What are Forecast Types? Why do we need Forecast Types? Forecast Types determine what is being forecast. Forecast Types determine: ● The specific measure (revenue, quantity, or custom) ● Date type (close, product, schedule, or custom date) ● Hierarchy (user role or territory) Additionally, you can add a custom filter to include or exclude certain opportunity data from your forecast.
- 16. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Forecast Categories Salesforce Forecast Categories are used to predict the likelihood of winning an Opportunity, with each sales stage mapped to a forecast category. ● Pipeline ● Best Case ● Most Likely (new Winter ‘22) ● Commit ● Closed ● Omitted
- 18. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Single & Cumulative Forecasts Forecasts can be either single or cumulative. Single forecasts will display the value from a single forecast category. Cumulative forecasts can be enabled and will display the value from multiple categories: ● Closed – Closed only ● Commit – Closed + Commit ● Most Likely – Closed + Commit + Most Likely ● Best Case – Closed + Commit + Most Likely + Best Case ● Open Pipeline – Commit + Most Likely + Best Case + Pipeline New! From Summer ‘22, you can now customize cumulative forecast names, as well as single-category rollup names.
- 20. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Show Changes Select Show Changes in Last 7 Days in View Options to enable a popup that contains information about the change and any adjustments.
- 21. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Quotas & Quota Attainment By adding Quotas you can view your quota attainment as a progress bar!
- 22. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Custom Calculated Columns
- 23. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Custom Calculated Columns Add up to 5 custom calculated columns per Forecast Type
- 24. The How
- 25. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Setup Go to Setup > Feature Settings > Sales > Forecast > Forecast Settings (or search “Forecasting” in the quick find box!). 1. The first step is to enable forecasting by toggling “Enable Forecast” to “Active”.
- 26. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin 2. Create and activate at least one Forecast Type using the setup flow. You can have up to four active Forecast Types. Setup
- 27. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin 3. Enable adjustments. 4. Choose cumulative or single-category forecast rollups. 5. Choose a default date range. 6. Select a default currency. 7. Show Quotas + Quota Attainment Percentages. 8. Enable forecast users. 9. Create your forecast hierarchy. 10. Customize forecast categories names. 11. Configure Forecast Pages. 12. Add a Forecasts tab and make it visible. Setup
- 29. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Best Practices 1. Go back to basics and evaluate your company’s maturity and data quality. Artificial intelligence (and humans) can’t work with bad data. So, first things first, how are you enforcing good data hygiene, and should you consider a data cleansing project prior to your forecasting setup? 2. Review and document existing processes and simplify where possible. This means asking “why” and streamlining. 3. Try to standardize your processes across the business. 4. Collaborate with stakeholders and define what needs to be measured, for example, are you measuring revenue, products, or both? 5. Decide if single or cumulative forecasts suit your business best. 6. Use Quotas in addition to Forecasts.
- 30. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Best Practices 7. Don’t wait until the end of the month or quarter to check your forecast. Get into the habit of checking your forecast early in the month or quarter for insight into future issues such as insufficient pipeline coverage. 8. If this is your first time implementing forecasting, consider starting with a small pilot group, and iterating frequently. Going live with a minimum viable product (MVP) to a small group will enable you to identify issues early and reduce onboarding efforts. 9. Don’t aim for perfection! As with all projects, there will be learnings and adjustments as you go along. Keep the business and key stakeholders engaged throughout the implementation to create and maintain trust and positivity. 10. Don’t fail at the final hurdle - no matter how fantastic your implementation of Salesforce Forecasting is, you need user buy-in and adoption for a successful project. Run training sessions for different types of users and provide documentation.
- 31. #CD2023 @CzechDreamin Salesforce Help: Collaborative Forecasts The Complete Guide to Building a Sales Forecast
- 32. Questions?