Revenue Forecasting is part of Collaborative Forecasting. The steps below cover enabling the feature, mapping stages to categories, and configuring the Forecast Hierarchy.
- Enable Collaborative Forecasting
In Setup, go to Forecasts, Settings. Tick Enable Forecasts. The platform provisions the Forecast Hierarchy mirrored from the Role Hierarchy.
- Enable Revenue Forecasts
On the Forecast Settings page, tick Enable Revenue Forecasts. This activates the dollar-amount roll-up. Quantity Forecasting is a separate checkbox if you also need unit counts.
- Configure Forecast Categories on Opportunity Stages
In Setup, go to Opportunity, Fields, Stage. For each stage, set the Forecast Category. Stages with no mapping default to Pipeline; explicit mapping is required for accurate Commit and Best Case rollups.
- Customise the Forecast Hierarchy if needed
Open the Forecast Hierarchy from Setup. By default it mirrors the Role Hierarchy. Enable forecasting on specific users (often the people-managers), assign forecast managers, and verify the tree matches the way the sales organisation reports.
- Test by creating opportunities and viewing the forecast
Create test opportunities at different stages and amounts. View the Forecasts tab as a manager and confirm the rollup totals match the underlying opportunities. Adjust a forecast number and verify the adjustment cascades correctly up the hierarchy.
Dollar-amount roll-up. The default forecast type for most orgs.
Unit-count roll-up. Use when units matter for capacity planning.
Setting that determines whether Commit includes Best Case and Closed (cumulative) or just the Commit category (non-cumulative).
- Opportunity Stages with no Forecast Category mapping default to Pipeline, which can silently inflate the pipeline bucket. Audit every active stage to confirm its mapping aligns with the sales process.
- Forecast Categories and Probability are independent. Custom stages can have high Probability but still fall in Best Case rather than Commit. Confusion between the two is the most-common source of bad forecast accuracy.
- Multi-currency orgs convert all forecasts to the corporate currency at the time of the forecast view. Exchange rate fluctuations between the forecast and the deal close produce small variances; finance teams need to know this when comparing forecast to actuals.