Sales Cloud - Collaborative Forecasting

My name is Mike Wei. I'm the forecasting product manager. I'm thrilled to be back. I think last time when I was here for release readiness, it wasn't live. So it's great to be here live in person. So I'm here to talk about the summer feature that's going to change the way how you can do forecasting within our application, how the data is being displayed. So first I'm going to talk about the feature. So the feature is going to be called cumulative forecast rollup. So what it does is gives you a clear idea of the actual numbers that sales is going to bring in by looking at the actual forecast category you're in plus any subsequent categories that's defined your sales process. For example, if we say commit forecast, it means commit plus closed. Right? So I'm going to explain two slides to explain what this means, but I think it's very complicated. So I'll make sure I'll show you with this feature on without a feature or what the data looks like and then ask your sales team, do you want this feature enabled? So first I want to talk about differences between cumulative and without. So you can see on the left side here, this is prior to some of the feature. If you don't turn on this pref, this is what you see within the forecast application, right? So when we say close, so the data is all based on your distinct forecast categories. So when we say close it means the deal is only enclosed. When we say commit, it only means the deals and commit. When we said best case, it only means the deal is in best case. When we say pipeline, this only means the deal's in pipeline. So you can see here I drew in bubbles to illustrate hey the distinctions of these categories separately within a forecast tab, right? So I think this is a good use case to ask based on all your opportunity, where are deals sitting? Right. So this is how the facility process sell forecast process. Based on this, I think you want, you don't want this feature on, but I know a lot of companies when they forecast numbers, it's more based on cumulative forecast categories. So it's a data based on aggregation of forecast categories. You can see here we'll have these defined definitions first if you enable this pref. So basically close means closed. When we say commit forecast it means a combination of close plus commit. When we say best case forecast it's a combination of close plus commit plus best case. And the last one is a little different. We call it open pipeline. Right. It's all the four categories of Close it's basically commit plus best case plus pipelines without close to basically give you let the reps and manager know how much pipeline is there for them to work with to get to that number that they're trying to close. So I drew here actually the bubble show you some of the overlap data that we're showing. Right. So I think this is very good at telling you based on all your opportunities, what is or what will sales deliver. So if you forecast based on this, I recommend pref on. And to illustrate further, I actually put a simple example in Excel. So I have one period that's called January. So period A, you can see throughout the time frame from A to E, right. How the data changes. So early on I had nothing closed 100 in commit 30 in best case. And let's just assume throughout the period all your deals were solely closed from commit best case to close, right? And only at the end, $10 in best case will not close as you see on the left side prior to the cumulative feature. So if you had this view, this is where the sales team manager forecasts based on where the deals are. You can see the numbers just slowly keep changing from commit best case to close. Right? And then you can also override this value thing is valuable. But I think most sales team, like I said, will focus on the right side with the cumulative forecast categories. So you can see the exact same data, how it's represented differently. You can see the close over time increase as more deal close. But then your commit plus close where you commit forecast is very stable. So you can see this is the number based on the data in Salesforce that we think that the sales rep or manager is going to deliver. I think this is where the reps can go override thinking, hey, what's my commit forecast? What's basically my downside? And then the close plus commit best case on the right, on the very right is basically the best case forecast. So you can see here the number's also very stable. And then only at the very end I see it drop by 10, right. So this is a good place for the reps or managers go in and make adjustments to let the management team know this is my upside or my best case forecast. Right. So you have now view what like the lower threshold of a sales forecast might look like and the upper threshold, right. So I think this is a good example to ask your sales team which process make more sense to them. So which of these resonate with you? So I think it's good to ask the sales reps and sales team before you go turn on this pref. If you don't want this feature, I recommend not to turn off this pref. But if you want it goes go turn it on. And the next one I'm going to show a screenshot basically what it looks like in case my demo doesn't work. So you can see here I highlight over commit forecast. You can see when you hover we have information bubbles over description of the forecast categories. You can see close commit forecast is a roll up of your commit and close, right? So when you click on that cell you can see all the opportunities underneath it is composing of commit and close. Right? So you can see all the opportunities composing that number. So next I'm going to go a quick demo. So here's my demo. So you can see here I'm actually logged in as Valerie Jones. I'm a sales manager logged in to see my forecast. So I want a quick overview for those not familiar, right? So you can see on forecast based on quarter, so you can set based on quarter or month, right? And I can see all my subordinates reporting under me. So all the sales rep reporting up to me and what number they're bringing in. Right. And then right now I have the pref turned on for cumulative forecast categories. See across the top I have close commit forecast is commit and close, right? And as I showed before now if I click on this cell, let's say if I want to click on Q2, Valerie Jones's commit forecast. If I hover over this now I see some details, right? See underneath I see all the opportunities associated to that number. Also when I hover I see the underlying opportunities of what's added up to. So it's about 2.2 million without any adjustments that's being put in. I see my reps actually put in, they're actually saying it actually become a little lower. This is closer to 2.1 million. But I still get the same functionality where actually as a manager I can still override this value. I actually think my team is actually sandbagging so I can put a note here, team is sandbagging for sure. So I could put context same functionality as before. I could put context and want to make an adjustment. So once I save now, now I'm overriding what the website commit forecast would commit into. So I say hey, it's 2.5 million now this number is now visible for my manager to see. Hey what the number I think my team's going to bring in so it brings extra value, right? And then Also when you turn this pref on it's enabled cumulative pref on it's enabled for all forecast types. Right. So here example I have off the opportunity revenue which is off the opportunity amount. You still get it off the custom field forecast. For example you have margin, you still get the same for by product family and by overlay splits. Right. In addition we preserve if you turn this on, we preserve your quota. So you can still look at your quotas and you can still show attainment looking. Hey, I can see now if I think my team's going to deliver 2.5 million, they'll hit about 143% of quota. So we give that visibility to what the rest will achieve. Right. And next I'll go is reporting very go to reporting. So you get the same. So all the forecast reports in collaborative are custom report types that you built. The only additional change that we have is now with the cumulative feature turned on. There's actually instead of forecast category because now we have a roll up of forecast categories. Now that doesn't make sense. So now we have a new field called forecasting item category that will show you that combination of commit forecast but additionally will give you also your old data of your distinct forecast categories. So I know even if you have the preference on to see the cumulative view within reporting, you still do get the detail of the distinct forecast category. So I can still look at reports to see how much is each stage, how much is each forecast, how much deals are comprising there you can override that value. Then now go back to my presentation. So where does admin go? Set this up. So it's very easy set up within the forecast tab. So right beneath the adjustment enablement there you have this enable cumulative forecast category. We have a brief description turn on. And then also once you enable this there's a caveat because as I showed before in my example the data structure is very different. So there's no way for us to preserve the adjustments you made without the feature. So PACER will purge your adjustments but will keep your quota. And additionally right now with the cumulative forecast roll up feature, we don't have historical trending available yet. It's on the roadmap but we want this feature out. So we figured this is a good feature to have because you have reporting just you would be missing the historical capability. Now back to Mike for some questions. Great.

Yep. So that was actually a very useful demonstration and I got to imagine every sales cloud user that we have that forecast out of Salesforce which we hope are all of you should be very interested in what you just said. I cannot wait to hear what they're saying on Twitter.

Elna well actually I'm kind of interested in who would need the cumulus forecast feature. I mean what's the profile of a customer who would most benefit from this feature.

So I feel like with the cumulative feature it's good for enterprise customers especially at the exec level. What they want ultimately at the exec level is to know what is the number that the sales reps is going to bring in my entire sales organization because the forecast has implications down the line. Say hey it helps with your planning. It helps with planning and knowing how the revenues might come out. So it's very important to get that visibility. So I think for a lot of enterprise customers if they want that type of data I recommend turning the preference on because it tells you exactly what we think the sales reps going to deliver.