Premium Forecasting

I have written an article about forecasting before which you can read here. Some things have changed since then and there has been some added functionality. So I figured I would write another article discussing some of the enhancements that are now available in Premium Forecasting. Keep in mind that in order to take advantage of these features you need to have a Sales Insights license. The features that are included with Premium Forecasting are predictive forecasting, a trend chart, snapshots and a flow chart. Note: Premium Forecasting is not available on Government Community Cloud, France and India.

Predictive Forecasting

Premium forecasting comes with predictive forecasting allowing users to see the predictive analysis of their sales efforts, which is driven by AI. Prediction calculations are based on the historical sales data (opportunities). According to Microsoft there are a few things you need to keep in mind before you can start using Predictive Forecasting. For the forecast predictions to be as accurate as possible you’ll need to have a minimum of 200 opportunities and/or a minimum of 2 years worth of closed opportunities in your environment. When you’re creating forecasts in Dynamics 365, you’ll have the ability to add a prediction column, keep in mind this prediction column is only available for org chart types of forecasts. You can add this prediction column to any existing forecasts, but unfortunately you can’t configure the forecast columns of the option set to show in the trend chart. If that is a requirement you’ll need to recreate the forecast(s) from scratch. To keep the predictions as accurate as possible, make sure the forecast categories are in sync with the opportunity status. (I.E if the forecast category field=won the opportunity status should also be won) If you’re using the out of the box category option set, there is a workflow that automatically runs to keep the status in sync with the category. The workflow is called ‘Opportunity Forecast Category Mapping Process’. If you’re not planning to use the out of the box ‘Forecast Category’ field, make sure you update the workflow or create a new one to sync the values. When you click on an amount in the prediction column, the prediction details chart will load, showing details of the prediction. The values on the chart are:

• Closed Won: Total value of all closed opportunities that are in the forecast time period
• Wins from existing deals: Total value of existing opportunities in the forecast time period that are predicted to close
• Wins from new deals: Total value of new opportunities in the forecast time period that are predicted to close
• Total Prediction: Total predicted amount for the current forecast period

Trend Chart

The trend chart provides the actual visualization of how opportunities in each category are doing over time. It also shows the total amounts for each category and the quota so users can see how they’re doing. We have the ability to view this data for each individual in the forecast. Besides historical data it also shows the predictive forecast. Users can also interact with the chart by hovering over the chart or clicking on the legend on the bottom of the chart to show or hide a category on the chart. Admins can configure the columns that should be included in the trending chart.

Snapshots

System admins have the ability to take a snap shot of forecast data that can be used at a later date for comparison. For example you can take a snapshot of the forecast data on January 1st and take another snapshot on February 1st and compare the two snapshots to see what has happened in that month. In order to take a snapshot, admins have to navigate to forecast configurations available from the App Settings area, hover their mouse on the right side of the forecast name and click on the ellipse that becomes visible and select ‘Add/View Snapshots”.

Flow Chart

The flow chart is where we can compare the snapshots and visualize the forecast changes between the two moments in time. I.E. We can see the total numbers of opportunities at the time of both snapshots and total estimated revenue amounts in each category. The flow chart shows us how things changed from snapshot 1 to snapshot 2. Users can hover their mouse over the chart to get more details. They can also can click on specific areas of the chart to see a list of opportunities that were affected by the change. When a user drills into an area of the flow chart they will see the data of both snapshots and each individual affected opportunity so they can understand why the change occurred.

In the video below I am going to walk you though setting up a new forecast, adding predictive forecasting to your forecast, creating the snapshots, and reviewing the charts. I hope you enjoyed this post! Be sure to check in again next week for a new topic or subscribe here to never miss another post!