Forecast usage so you can scale before crisis.
Dimensions to plan:
- Users — license counts, login patterns, peak concurrent.
- Records — storage by object, growth rate.
- Files — file storage, attachment counts.
- API calls — 24-hour limit; integration volume.
- Sandboxes — counts and storage.
- Custom fields per object — limits.
- Apex code lines — limits.
- Email — daily send limits.
Forecast approach:
- Current state baseline.
- Growth projection (linear / quadratic based on history).
- Peak vs average.
- Headroom — typically aim for 30-50% headroom before constrained.
Triggers for action:
- Approaching limits — buy more capacity / optimize / archive.
- License utilisation — reassign or buy.
- Storage approaching cap — archive or buy more.
Cost optimization:
- Right-size licenses (downgrade unused full Salesforce to Platform).
- Clean up archived sandboxes.
- Compress / archive old data.
- Renegotiate at renewals.
Senior insight: plan capacity quarterly; don't wait for capacity issues. Reactive procurement is expensive.