A forecast helps your organization predict how much revenue your sales team will generate in a given time frame. When done correctly, forecasting can play a significant role in your company’s success. By using a forecast:
- Sellers can track performance against their targets and identify pipeline risks that might jeopardize their ability to hit their targets.
- Managers can track individual sales performance against quotas to proactively provide coaching.
- Directors can use forecast trends to anticipate departmental sales and reallocate resources if necessary.
- Organization leaders can use the projected estimates to change the product strategy or convey updated projections to investors.
NOTE : Forecasting is not available on Government Community Cloud (GCC).
As an administrator or forecast manager, you can configure forecasts in your organization. You can define the type of forecast, its hierarchy, permissions for accessing it, and the details you want to appear on the forecast grid. After a forecast is activated, your sales team can view the revenue and pipeline projections.
Prerequisite tasks
Perform the following prerequisite tasks:
- Assign the Administrator or Forecast manager role that will allow you to perform the following tasks:
- Create, assign, and edit forecast configurations for your organization.
- Delete, activate, and deactivate forecast configurations that have been defined for your organization.
Enable forecasting in your organization. To enable forecasting, follow these steps:
- Sign in to the Sales Hub app.
- At the bottom of the site map, select Change area
, and then select App settings.
3.Under Performance management, select Forecast configurations.
4. Select Enable forecasting.
5.In the confirmation message, select Enable.
Forecasting is now enabled for your organization, and the following page is displayed:
Also, when forecasting is enabled, the following changes appear in the Sales Hub app:
- Forecasts appears under Performance in the Sales site map.
Forecast category appears on the Opportunity form. The categories define the confidence level of closing an opportunity. If necessary, you can add custom values specifically defined for your organization. To learn more, see Capture forecast category for opportunity.
NOTE:
Forecast category options consists of Won and Lost opportunity statuses. If an opportunity is set as Won or Lost, the forecast category automatically changes status through the Opportunity Forecast Category Mapping Process out-of-the-box workflow.
To view the Opportunity Forecast Category Mapping Process workflow, go to Settings > Process Center > Processes and select All Processes view. Search and open the Opportunity Forecast Category Mapping Process workflow. You can customize or deactivate the workflow according to your organization’s requirements.
If you’re using a custom option set instead of forecast category, you must create a workflow to automatically sync the opportunity status with your option set to ensure that the forecast is projecting accurate values.
Srinath Pega 
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