Improving Pipeline and Process Flow with Trends Analytics

Sales managers access and monitor the teams' sales data by tracking the progress of opportunities, evaluating scores, and predicting outcomes. Also, if the system enables revenue splitting, the Pipeline Manager and Forecast Tracker show this information for easy viewing.

A sales manager or sales representative filters opportunities and has them shown in a bubble chart. The chart helps visualize the risks related to opportunities in the pipeline.

1. Won: The sum of opportunities won so far.
2. Committed: The sum of opportunities that a sales team needs to commit to. The amount includes won opportunities and deals expected to close within a period.
3. Best Case: Builds on the committed amount by including opportunities that the sales team expects to win in a favorable scenario.
4. Pipeline: The sum of all open opportunities in the pipeline, excluding won opportunities.​

Navigate between the Forecast Tracker and the Pipeline Manager while keeping the time and sales unit selections. It increases the convenience of pipeline inspection and guarantees a correct forecast.

The Pipeline Manager enables easy monitoring of opportunities within a specific time frame using visually engaging charts. It helps analyze the total number of opportunities on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. This flexible tool allows sales managers to view data for the entire sales team or to filter it by individual sales representatives.

View opportunity data in line charts or bubble charts, with each bubble indicating an opportunity.

Bubble size shows opportunity value; larger bubbles mean higher expected values.

A bubble’s location reveals the expected close date and the likelihood of closing. The opportunity score, calculated by a machine-learning algorithm, indicates the level of risk. Use the opportunity score or probability to evaluate risk.

Bubble color indicates the risk and the likelihood of winning an opportunity. Green is low risk, yellow is medium risk, and red is high risk. Easily identify promising or at-risk opportunities and update their priorities. The chart shows won deals in gray.

The Opportunities chart has three dimensions:

• X-Axis: The closing date of the opportunity
• Y-Axis: The opportunity score or probability
• Bubble Size: The opportunity value

1. Switch from the bubble chart to a bar-line combination chart. Clicking anywhere on the graphics gives more information about the highlighted figures.
2. Change the sales unit viewed by using a drop-down box in the selection criteria.
3. There's also a filter icon next to the calendar.
4. The calendar info filters what the chart presents. This chart has two dimensions:
   • X-Axis: The closing date of the opportunity.
   • Y-Axis: The opportunity value.
5. Click the stacks in a bar to see the opportunity value and the number of opportunities related to that stack. The value near a stack is specific to the selected stack. The Y-axis indicates the sum of opportunity values for the selected stack.
6. Click on the line named Won Last Year in the legend and see the value of the opportunities won during the same time in the previous year.

Trend Analytics offers a visual chart for comparing current-quarter trends with the ones in the last four quarters. The chart uses the current quarter's date to show how it works and how far the team is in the current quarter compared to the same point in previous quarters.

• The chart uses the current quarter's date to show how it works and how far the team is in the current quarter compared to the same point in previous quarters.
• Compare progress for the current quarter against earlier quarters using actual numbers.
• View all successful closed opportunities for a given quarter.
• View a prediction of how many pipelines the team closes at the end of the current quarter.

Trend Analytics enables the following:

• Check if your sales team generates more or fewer opportunities this quarter than in the last four quarters.
• Understand historical success rates by forecast category and determine whether there are enough opportunities in the pipeline to meet targets based on those historical rates.
• Check whether the team's success rates increase or decrease over a period.
• Compare across sales units by applying filters.

With these insights, the sales manager understands how to:

• Concentrate efforts on outbound marketing to generate more selling opportunities.
• Identify high-value opportunities that can significantly influence the quarter and give resources to them.
• Set up coaching sessions with sales representatives or sales units that have lower success rates compared to their peers.

The following demonstration shows how to enable Revenue Splits. Once enabled, the sales manager splits the revenue from a sales opportunity between sales employees. Then, you can see how much each revenue partner contributes to an opportunity.

Use the Pipeline Flow to see how the opportunity pipeline changes over time. With a clear view of how opportunities evolve, the sales manager sees which ones didn't progress as expected and where they need to progress.

For example, Eduard, the sales manager, follows up with sales representatives involved in specific opportunities to confirm whether they have any meetings scheduled or will schedule any soon.

The pipeline flowchart offers real-time insights into how the pipeline evolves.

1. Use the filter panel to view a wanted subset of opportunities in the pipeline
2. Filter opportunities by Close Date. The pipeline flow shows opportunities expected to close, or that were closed during the chosen fiscal period.
3. Select the time period and examine how the pipeline evolved over the chosen period.
4. The Start column shows opportunities at the beginning of the selected fiscal period. It divides them into "buckets," for example, committed, best case, and pipeline. The value in each bucket equals the sum of opportunity values in each corresponding category.
5. The End column shows opportunities at the end of the selected fiscal period, and divides them into status buckets, such as unchanged, progressed, won, or lost.
6. When you select a bucket in either column, the solution does the following:
   • When you select a bucket in the Start column, you see one or more connectors pointing to where those opportunities progressed to today.
   • If you select a bucket in the End column, the connectors show which buckets the opportunities started in. Clicking a connector shows the number, amount, and number of opportunities it has in the selected bucket.
   • Filters data in the table view below the chart. The system limits the data in the Opportunities and Sales Unit Rollup tabs to opportunities in the selected bucket.
7. The horizontal line above shows opportunities that are already in the pipeline at the beginning of the selected fiscal period. Below the dividing line, you can capture opportunities that enter or exit the pipeline during the chosen period.

Depending on the role, you can drill down into each opportunity in two views.

• Opportunities: This read-only view shows a full list of the opportunities. Sales representatives see their own opportunities. Sales managers see opportunities for everyone in the sales units they roll up to. If the administrator enabled revenue splits, you can see how much each revenue partner contributes to an opportunity.
• Sales Unit Rollup: As a sales manager, you see the entire pipeline broken out by sales unit.

Click the plus (+) icon, expand each sales unit, and further examine the totals. Select the name of a sales unit to navigate down and reload the view from the perspective of that level.

The sales manager, Eduard, wants to see the current sales pipeline for the sales team. Eduard wants to customize the display and understand how to make key changes to improve the information. After reviewing the figures, Eduard plans to download the results to Microsoft Excel.

The following demonstration shows how Eduard runs the pipeline reporting for the sales team, adjusts the view, and downloads the data to MS Excel.

The Forecast Tracker compares submitted forecast data with sales targets and aggregated opportunity totals for your selected fiscal period. When differences happen, sales managers follow up to find and address the cause. Use the Forecast Tracker to deliver a correct sales forecast, eliminating the need for cumbersome spreadsheets.

Effective forecasting is important for maximizing the sales pipeline and ultimately boosting the bottom line. To achieve this goal, establish a regular forecasting process in which both sales managers and representatives commit to and project their best case numbers. It not only improves clarity but also promotes accountability for individual performance.

To refine your forecasts, you can override some features for scenario planning:

1. Simulate outcomes: Adjust opportunity details to expect various possibilities.
2. Temporarily exclude opportunities: Remove selected deals from the current fiscal period to understand the impact.
3. Submit refined forecasts: Incorporate overridden results into the next forecasts to enable more informed decisions.

By embracing these practices, whether you're a sales manager or representative, you gain a clear understanding of the sales pipeline and ultimately drive more reliable results.

The Forecast Tracker is a dynamic visual tool that compares forecast numbers with sales targets and pipeline data. Explore the key features highlighted in the following screenshot and unlock the full potential of the Forecast Tracker:

1. The Target tab shows the sales target defined for the selected month, quarter, or year. As a Sales Manager, you can edit this figure and have the change immediately visible in the forecast tracker chart.
2. The target line uses a purple-dashed line to show the target total in the forecast tracker.
3. Forecast Figures/Live Figures allow toggling between forecast and live totals for committed and best case opportunities. Forecast figures come from forecast submissions. Live figures aggregate all live opportunities across the committed and best case forecast categories, including opportunity-level overrides.
   • Forecast figure lines show the timelines of forecast submissions and the expected progress of opportunities based on them. The green dashed line is for committed figures, and the yellow dashed line is for best case figures. Each point marks a forecast submission.
   • Live figure lines show the timelines for how the won opportunities totals expect to change based on close dates scheduled during that fiscal period, considering any overrides you made. The solid green line shows committed figures, and the solid yellow line is for best case figures. Each point marks an opportunity close date.
4. Show Previous allows seeing previous forecasts, in case there is more than one forecast submitted.
5. Submit allows submission of new forecast numbers.

As a sales manager or sales representative, test different potential outcomes in Forecast Tracker and submit adjusted numbers in the next forecast.

1. Override Opportunities: Under Opportunities, adjust the amount and forecast category of any opportunity in the forecast and visualize how the changes impact the revenue estimate in real time.

   Click the Edit icon in the field and select Override to make changes. After editing an opportunity, the changes write back to the opportunity records in the system. The opportunity overrides are strictly for simulation purposes and are visible only to the sales manager and the sales representative assigned to the opportunity.

2. Toggle opportunities: Toggle out an opportunity to remove it from the forecast. If it eventually closes, also toggle a pipeline opportunity that is still at an early stage of its cycle.
3. View Live Rollup: See the simulation changes in the Forecast Tracker chart and decide whether to keep or revert the override changes.

With the Sales Unit Rollup tab showing live figures, see how simulations affect the sales unit totals. While keeping revenue splits in an opportunity, the opportunity owner can specify a sales unit for each revenue partner. The solution splits the contribution to the opportunity based on a defined split percentage across corresponding sales units.