Configuring Pipeline and Sales Forecasting

Administrators use the General Settings for configuring Pipeline Management and Forecasting and set the defaults for how data will be displayed.

We have already learned about Pipeline Management and Forecasting in the perspective of a sales representative and a sales manager. Let's learn how an administrator can configure settings to meet business needs and requirements for pipeline reporting.

KPI Definition

Select how aggregated totals are displayed. There are two options:

• Sum by Forecast Category: Aggregate opportunities in a specified category.

  For example, best case represents the sum of all best case opportunities only, not any other category.

• Cumulative Sum Across Forecast Categories: Aggregate opportunities across applicable categories.

  For example, best case represents the sum all of opportunities in best case, committed, and won categories.

Amount Field for Totals

Select which totals types will be for calculating aggregated totals in Pipeline Management. There are two options:

• Expected Value of the opportunity
• Total Negotiated Value of the opportunity

Select how sales forecasts should be aggregated. Every opportunity must be assigned to a sales unit node in order to appear in the system. There are two options:

• Territory Hierarchy: Based on sales territories
• Sales Unit Hierarchy: Based on organizational structure assignment

Revenue Splits

Activate this option to indicate whether revenue splits, defined in opportunities in the system, factor into opportunity values and aggregates pipeline data.

View Opportunities

Allows you to define which of these two date types will be used to view opportunities:

• Close Date
• Revenue Start Date

Opportunity Notes

Activate this option to allow users to submit notes on an opportunity.

The notes submitted are automatically filtered by sales hierarchy. That means notes made by managers of a sales unit node aren't visible to managers of subordinate units or sales reps under them. This visibility restriction applies to Pipeline Management and Forecasting only.

Benchmark Currency

Choose the default currency for currency conversions.

Default Currency

Choose the default currency for pipeline and forecast reporting for business users.

Set Decision Maker

Select a default decision maker for the contact role, there are three options.

• Approver
• Decision maker
• Influencer

Score

Configure the type of opportunity scoring that will be used.

Opportunity scoring uses machine learning to predict if an opportunity in status open or in process will be won or lost, which is expressed in an opportunity score. The pipeline manager module uses the opportunity score to create the visual representation of the opportunities in the pipeline. There are two options:

• Probability
• Opportunity Score

If you choose opportunity score, you can also access intelligence features like predictive rollup in the forecast tracker.

Opportunity Export

Disable the option for users to export opportunity data when running pipeline and forecast reporting.

Forecast Category Mapping

Map forecast categories in the system to their equivalents in Pipeline Management and Forecasting.

Forecast Tracker administration is split into two areas:

1. Forecast Type Configuration
2. Mass Upload Targets

Pipeline Management and Forecasting allows for multiple different forecast types such as new business or renewals. It also allows for multiple different targets to be entered against these forecast types. By default, it is an empty configuration.

1. By choosing plus icon a new Forecast Type Configuration is created.
2. You can select from the 4 default fields:
   • Document Type Code
   • Priority Code
   • Source Code
   • Reason for Status Code
3. Finally, the value is entered from the dropdown menu.

Administrators can download a CSV template to fill in, save, and upload sales target information to the SAP system. When you download, the system generates a template CSV file, containing details required to set targets for selected node and each subnode.

This data includes:

Forecast Type

Pipeline Management and Forecasting allows for multiple different forecast types such as new business or renewals.

It also allows for multiple different targets to be entered against these forecast types. Therefore, the forecast type ID is mandatory. Enter 1 if you only use the default category.

Fiscal Period Date

The start date of the relevant fiscal period in the format YYYY-MM-DD (2023-05-01)

Warning: The date format is always set back to MM/DD/YYYY every time you open the CSV. Change it to YYYY-MM-DD before saving or else, the upload fails. 

Fiscal Period Type

Enter month or quarter, depending on whether the target is being set for a fiscal month or quarter.

Amount

Target amount for the relevant node.

Currency

Currency to be used when storing the target amount.

You can monitor the upload progress by clicking the arrow beside the Upload button. If errors occur, you can download a CSV file that contains error details.

If a target already exists, the ID column is filled in the downloaded CSV. When you upload a modified version of the file, the existing targets are updated.

Pipeline flow relies on historical data that gets built over time. As an administrator, you can specify the date from which historical changes are competent for pipeline flow inspection per your business requirement:

If users select a period before the specified date, the system provides a warning message suggesting users to choose a period after the specified date.

Pipeline Flow administration allows for filter settings to be set when running the Pipeline Flow and this can be executed using the Adaptation Tool.

Filter Settings

This allows you to select the fields that will be filter criteria for opportunities when running the Pipeline Flow. You can add more fields to this list or remove some of the default values.

Configure Forecast Categories

To use Pipeline Management and Forecasting, administrators must set up forecast categories in the system.

• Opportunities must be assigned to forecast categories as aggregate totals are calculated and displayed based on forecast category.
• Opportunities without a forecast category maintained aren't available.

Deal Intelligence

Must be enabled for opportunity scoring.

Users and Control

Restrictions for authorizations from opportunityService should be maintained.

Opportunity Services: sap.crm.service.opportunityService

Forecasting Services: sap.crm.service.forecastService

sap.crm.forecastservice.uiapp.forecast

Pipeline Services: sap.crm.service.pipelineService

• sap.crm.pipelineservice.uiapp.pipeline for the UI of Pipeline Manager
• sap.crm.pipelineservice.uiapp.pipelineAdmin for the UI of administrator settings.

Pipeline Flow Services: sap.crm.service.pipelineFlowService

• sap.crm.pipelineflowservice.uiapp.pipelineflow for the UI of Pipeline Flow
• sap.crm.pipelineflowservice.uiapp.trendAnalytics for the UI of Trend Analytics

Revenue splitting is also enabled here.

Once enabled, sales managers and representatives can set and view their revenue splits.

Forecast categories are pre-delivered with the SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 solution. There are 3 standard categories:

1. Pipeline
2. Committed
3. Best Case

In addition, there must be initial configurations for the system settings below:

• Fiscal year
• Configure currencies so a benchmark currency can be chosen
• Configure delegate access to a sales unit (secondary manager access) and disable the Primary switch. This will allow a secondary manager to see data that the primary manager views when choosing "My Team" queries.