Forecasting Admin Configuration in Outreach Commit

Purpose

For customers of Outreach Commit, users need the ability to utilize multiple forecasts for different dimensions of their business concurrently. Decision-makers and stakeholders use sales forecasts to make choices about an organization's growth, set strategy, and determine the timeline they’ll need to succeed. Forecasts across multiple business dimensions and time periods help businesses uncover potential risks and opportunities.

Intended Audience

• Outreach Commit admins

Does this change the current views of forecasting?

There are a few meaningful changes to the configurability and flexibility of forecasting in Outreach Commit. 

• Forecast calls and forecast metrics can appear as a tile in the primary forecast area and/or as a column in the forecast grid
• Improved forecast rollup visibility with 2-level hierarchy views in the forecast grid
• Managers have increased permissions to submit forecasts on behalf of teams or reps nested beneath them in the team hierarchy
• Improved forecast history with an added “Submitted by” column
• Forecasts can be assigned to specific branches of the team hierarchy, allowing for more relevant forecasts based on the area of a sales organization

Who can use parallel forecasting?

Control for configuration of parallel forecasting resides in the Commit Admin experience.  Any customer with an “admin” role type will be able to create, configure, and publish forecasts. Visibility of the created forecasts can be segmented by team hierarchy level and role type and is defined by the Commit admin.

Example forecasts

• Multiple forecasts are configured based on an opportunity’s record type (e.g., new logo and expansion forecasts)
• Multiple forecasts configured based on product level ARR
• Forecasting partner network ARR
• Forecasting FYCV and TCV separately

Creating Forecasts

Within the Forecasts page of Commit Admin, click the “Create Forecast” button.

At a high level, creating a new forecast involves 5 steps. We’ll go into each of these in more detail below. 

1. Type the Forecast Name. This is the label the forecast will appear under on the front end. 
   
   
2. Select the Forecast Period. This defines the period of time the forecast looks at. 
3. Add Forecast Metrics and/or Forecast Calls. These are the stages or categories you want to appear under the forecast.
4. Assign Forecast Visibility within the Team hierarchy. This defines which users can view the forecast in the front end. 
5. Click Save.

Configuration of Forecast Metrics

1. An Admin can navigate to Commit Admin > Forecasts > Edit a Forecast.
2. Click Add Metric in the Metrics in the Forecast section.
3. Hover the cursor over the new forecast metric and click the pencil icon to edit it.

Assigning Forecast Visibility

Within the Forecasts page of the Commit Admin, click Edit Forecast. From there, at the bottom of the page, click a team within the team hierarchy. The top of the hierarchy will have visibility to all forecasts. However, not necessarily all branches of the hierarchy will have access to all forecasts.

• Selecting the top of the hierarchy means that the forecast will be visible to the entire team hierarchy.  
• Selecting a branch within the hierarchy means that the teams at and below that branch of the hierarchy will have access to the forecast.  Levels directly above will also inherit visibility to the forecast.

A purple check mark denotes the selected level within the hierarchy where this forecast begins.  Gray check marks indicate teams nested beneath that level that will utilize the forecast, while purple dashes indicate all levels above that will also have access to the forecast.

Let’s explore this a bit further in the example team hierarchy shown below. If an admin selected Director, EMEA for a particular forecast, then it will be visible by the teams nested beneath it (Manager, EMEA and AE’s, EMEA). CRO will also then inherit access to the forecast since it precedes Director, EMEA in the hierarchy. Finally, Director, NAM, and all nested teams beneath it will not have access to this particular forecast.

Example Team Hierarchy Assignment of a Forecast

General Metric Settings

1. Type the Forecast Metric name (e.g., Best Case).
   
   
2. Select Yes or No for whether a forecast can be overridden with a manual forecast call.  Selecting “Yes” indicates that users will be able to submit a forecast against this metric. Whereas selecting “No” indicates the forecast metric will not allow manual submission and is included for informational purposes.

Filters Metric Settings

1. Select Add Filter to configure the Opportunity object fields that will apply to this forecast metric.
   
   
2. Select an Opportunity field, then select an operator, then select or enter a value.
3. Repeat step 6 until your desired logic has been created for this forecast metric.

Formulas Metric Settings

1. Select the forecast metrics that will be used within the formula.
   Note: these need to have already been defined within this forecast configuration.
   
   
2. Enter a formula. 

Examples:

1. a + b + c
2. (a + b) x 0.80

Display Metric Settings

1. Select whether this forecast metric will display in the banner, the grid, or both.
2. Select whether this forecast metric is visible to managers, reps, or both.
3. Select the format to display with this metric.
   
   

Preview a forecast

Before publishing a forecast, you can click Preview on the Forecasts Admin page. This will enable you to visualize and verify your forecast experience.

Another alternative is to create new forecasts with a sandbox. Check out this article for more details on sandboxes with Outreach Commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add more fields for building Forecast Metrics?

Filterable fields are added to the filters listed based on the fields synced through the opportunity CRM object.  To add or remove these fields, an admin user can manage this in the Data Sync page with Outreach Commit.

Are goals supported as a forecast metric?

Yes, but the creation of this type of forecast metric currently requires a request from Outreach support.  Utilization of the goal (e.g., quota) as a forecast metric is particularly useful for organizations who wish to display coverage within the forecast grid view.

Is the forecast duration configurable?

Yes, on the main page within a forecast configuration, users can select monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual forecasts.