Salesforce Forecasts + Quotas: Custom Report Types for Actual vs Quota Reports
This is the sixth video in our Salesforce Forecasting Series! One of the limitations in Salesforce Forecasting is when a manager views their forecast in the Forecast tab, the totals for their reps do not add up to show them where the team is at against quota. There is a way to work around this by importing Forecasts for the Forecast Manager. This workaround does require you to filter out the manager's quota from showing in forecast reporting, so the amounts are not double counted.
If you have not setup Forecasts & Quotas in Salesforce yet, check out our videos and articles containing step-by-step instructions on how to quickly setup this awesome tool for your sales teams.
- Blu Tiger Academy Videos:
- Blu Ninjas Articles:
Salesforce Resources:
Our Business Requirements
We set up a new Forecast Type for our sales team and now we need to add reference data columns to show the team's stretch goals and the amount they achieved last year. We will need to know the stretch goals for each sales rep and the amount they did last year by month.
Our sales team consists of the following people:
- 1 Head of Sales
- 2 Sales Managers with 2 sales team members on each team.
- Both Sales Managers report to the Head of Sales.
Pros & Cons to Each Option
- Option #1 - Import quotas for managers on existing Forecast Type:
- Pros:
- There is only one Forecast Type to manage and use for both sales reps and managers.
- Cons:
- You must remember to filter out the managers from all reporting or else the Quota totals are inflated.
- If your managers have opportunities that need to contribute to their teams' forecast, this option will not work because you have to filter out the managers from Forecasting reports.
- Pros:
- Option #2 - Create a new Forecast Type and import quotas for both managers and sales reps:
- Pros:
- You can use one Forecast Type for reporting and the other one for showing the roll ups for the managers in the Forecast tab.
- Sales managers opportunities are included in the forecast type without their quotas entered.
- Cons:
- There are two Forecast Types to use and manage.
- You must remember to filter for the Forecast Type without the Manager quotas for all reports.
- Pros:
Option #1 - Add Forecast Quotas to existing Forecast Type for each manager
Please Note: This option will only work for you if your managers do NOT have Opportunities that need to contribute to the quotas. In this option, we filter out all manager's forecasts from reporting and therefore their opportunities will also be filtered out.
- Export Forecasting Quotas and User objects
- Add columns to Forecast Quotas file: Owner Name and Manager. Add Manager Names
- Prepare new Excel file with appropriate columns
- Insert data into a Pivot table and then copy/transpose/paste into prepared file
- Import Quotas into the ForecastingQuota object via Data Loader
- Go to the Actual vs Quota report (we created this report in our Forecast + Quotas: Custom Report Types video) and show how the quotas are inflated due to the new manager quotas.
- Go to Custom Report type = Forecasting Quotas with Forecasting Items and add Forecast Owner Role Name field to the report type.
- Go to Actual vs Quota report -> Add filter Owner: Role: Name: does not contain RoleNameHere. See the quotas for managers are no longer included.
Option #2 - Create a new Forecast Type and add quotas for sales reps + managers
- We are not going to explain anything here on how to setup a new Forecast Type - check out our Forecast + Quotas: Initial Setup video if you want an in depth explanation of what we are doing here.
- Create a new Forecast Type called Rev Est by Month Rollup (or whatever you want)
- Run this query in the Developer Console: Select Id, MasterLabel, developerName from ForecastingType to get the ForecastingType Id
- Import Quotas into the ForecastingQuota object for both managers and reps using Data Loader into this new Forecast Type
- Go to Actual vs Quota report (we created this report in our Forecast + Quotas: Custom Report Types video) and see that both Forecast Types are showing.
- Add a filter for Forecasting Type: API Name = Rev_Est_by_Month_Rollup
For any questions, comments, concerns – let us know in the comment section below!
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