Set up the core Sales Cloud configuration so a new sales team can start managing leads, accounts, opportunities, and forecasts on day one.
- Define the user hierarchy
Setup, Users, Roles. Build the role hierarchy that mirrors the actual sales org chart. The hierarchy drives forecasting and sharing.
- Provision users and licenses
Setup, Users. Add each rep with their role assignment, profile (Sales User, Sales Manager), and assigned permission sets. Send activation emails.
- Configure the opportunity stages
Setup, Object Manager, Opportunity, Fields. Edit the Stage picklist to match the team's stage definitions. Map each stage to a Forecast Category.
- Set up Products and Price Books
Setup, Products. Create the catalog. Add each product to the Standard Price Book with the canonical list price. Optionally add custom price books for channel pricing.
- Enable Collaborative Forecasts
Setup, Forecasts Settings, Enable. Choose forecast types (Revenue, Quantity, Product Family). Load quotas via Data Loader against the Forecasting Quota object.
- Build the launch dashboard
Reports, New Dashboard. Add tiles for Pipeline by Stage, Opportunities Closed This Quarter, Forecast vs Quota, and Activity per Rep. Share with the sales team.
Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited. Drives which features are available out of the box.
Revenue or Quantity, by Opportunity, Opportunity Split, Product Family, or Territory.
Add-on for inside sales sequences and cadences (formerly High Velocity Sales).
AI features for scoring, activity capture, conversation insights, and Einstein GPT.
- Sales Cloud Essentials caps users at 10 and removes many features. Most customers outgrow Essentials within a year; plan to upgrade to Professional or Enterprise before the cap bites.
- Forecast roll-ups follow the Role hierarchy, not the Manager field on User. Misconfigured roles produce wrong forecast numbers; audit the role tree before going live.
- Lead conversion creates an Account, a Contact, and optionally an Opportunity. Default conversion rules can produce duplicate accounts; configure duplicate management before opening the floodgates.
- Einstein features need historical data to produce meaningful scores. A brand new org with no closed opportunities yields generic predictions; budget 12 to 18 months before Einstein for Sales adds real signal.