Streamlining Pipeline and Process Flow with Trends Analytics

Sales managers can access and monitor their teams' sales data, track progress of opportunities, assess scores, and predict outcomes. Also, if revenue splitting is enabled, they can easily view this information within the Pipeline Manager and Forecast Tracker.

As a sales manager or sales representative, you can filter opportunities and have them displayed in a bubble chart. The chart helps you visualize the risks associated with opportunities within your pipeline.

You can navigate between Forecast Tracker and Pipeline Manager retaining the time period and sales unit selection. This is meant to increase the convenience of pipeline inspection and ensure accurate forecasting.

The Pipeline Manager allows you to easily monitor opportunities within a specific time frame using visually engaging charts. You can analyze aggregate totals of opportunities on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. This flexible tool allows sales managers to view data for the entire sales team or filter it based on individual sales representatives.

You can see opportunity data in line charts or bubble charts. Each bubble represents an opportunity.

The bubble size indicates the opportunity value. The larger the bubble, the larger the expected value.

The bubble's location provides insight into when the opportunity should be closed and how likely it is. The oopportunity score, based on a machine-learning algorithm, indicates the level of risk associated with the opportunity. Alternatively, probability can be used in place of the opportunity score.

The color of the bubble indicates the risk associated with an opportunity and its likelihood to be won. Green indicates low risk, yellow indicates medium, and red indicates high risk. You can quickly identify opportunities that are promising or at risk and change their priority accordingly. Won deals are shown 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

You can switch from a bubble chart to a bar-line combination chart (1). Clicking anywhere on the graphics gives more information to the highlighted figures.

A sales manager can change the sales unit (2) they are viewing, by a drop-down box in the selection criteria. There is also a filter icon (3) next to the calendar (4) info to filter what's presented in the chart.

This chart has two dimensions:

• X-axis: the closing date of the opportunity
• Y-axis: the opportunity value

Click the stacks (5) in a bar to see the opportunity value and the number of opportunities associated with that stack. While the opportunity value that appears near the stack is specific to the stack you have selected, the value that you can see beside the Y-axis represents the sum of opportunity values up to the selected stack.

Click on the line named Won Last Year (6) in the legend to see the value of the opportunities won during the same time in the previous year.

Trend Analytics provides a visual aid to compare the trend of the current quarter trend with the one in the last four quarters.

• The current date in the current quarter is the key to understanding how the chart works. It helps you to understand how far your team is into the current quarter compared to where the team was at the same point in previous quarters.
• You can also compare progress in the current quarter against progress in prior quarters in actual numbers.
• You can view the actual opportunities, which were successfully closed for a given quarter.
• You can also view a prediction of how much pipeline the team closes at the end of the current quarter.

Using Trend Analytics, you can:

• Understand if your sales team is generating more or fewer opportunities this quarter than the last four quarters.
• Understand the historical success rate per forecast category and arrive at whether there are enough opportunities in the pipeline to hit the targets, based on the historical success rates.
• Understand whether your team's success rates are increasing or decreasing over a period.
• Compare across sales units by applying filters.

With these insights, a sales manager can understand how to:

• Concentrate efforts on outbound marketing to generate more selling opportunities.
• Identify high-value opportunities that are likely to materially affect the quarter and add resources to such opportunities.
• Set up coaching sessions with sales representatives, or sales units that have lower success rates compared to their peers.

All the opportunity data that contributes to the Pipeline Manager is listed under the chart. There are a few views that a sales manager can use to see the results data.

These are the tabs that can be seen:

• The Sales Unit Rollup tab shows the current sales unit that is being evaluated. As a sales manager, you can see your entire pipeline broken out by sales unit. Click the + (plus) icon to expand each sales unit to examine the sub-unit aggregates. Click the name of a sales unit to navigate down and reload the view from the perspective of that org level.
• The Opportunities tab shows all active opportunities being evaluated.
• The Totals Breakdown tab shows all totals by Owner, Sales Phase, Account, or Document Type. This view divides a pipeline by opportunity owner, sales phase, account and opportunity type. This allows a sales manager to have a glimpse of his team's pipeline in each forecast category.

Sales managers can see all these three tabs. Sales representatives can only see Opportunities.

Use Pipeline Flow to see how the opportunity pipeline has changed over time. With a clear view of how opportunities evolve, the Sales Manager can see which ones aren't progressing as expected and take action.

For example, Eduard, the sales manager, could follow up with sales representatives involved in certain opportunities to verify whether any meetings have recently taken place or are scheduled to happen soon.

The pipeline flowchart provides you with real-time insights into how your pipeline evolves over time.

1. Use the filter panel to view a desired subset of opportunities in your pipeline.
2. Filter opportunities by Close Date. The pipeline flow only displays opportunities that are expected to be closed or were closed within the chosen fiscal period.
3. Select the time period and examine how your pipeline has evolved over the chosen period.
4. Start column represents opportunities at the beginning of the selected fiscal period, and divides them into "buckets", for example committed, best case, and pipeline. The value in each bucket equals to the sum of opportunity values in each corresponding category.
5. End column represents 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 have progressed to today.
   • If you select a bucket in the End column, the connectors show which buckets the opportunities started in. Clicking on a connector displays what it represents in terms of the number, amount, and number of opportunities in the selected bucket.
   • Filters data in the table view below the chart. The data in the Opportunities or Sales Unit Rollup tabs are restricted to the opportunities in the selected bucket.
7. Above the horizontal line are the opportunities that are already in your pipeline at the beginning of the selected fiscal period. Below the dividing line, you can capture opportunities that move into or out of your pipeline within the chosen period.

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

Opportunities:

This is a read-only view that displays a full list of your opportunities. Sales representatives see their own opportunities. Sales managers see opportunities for everyone in the sales units that roll up to them. If your administrator has enabled revenue splits, you can see how much each revenue partner contributes to an opportunity.

Sales Unit Rollup:

As a sales manager, you can see your entire pipeline broken out by sales unit.

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

The Forecast Tracker seamlessly compares submitted forecast data with established sales targets and aggregated opportunity totals for your chosen fiscal period. Upon detecting discrepancies, it empowers sales managers to investigate and address the root causes. Use the Forecast Tracker to generate highly accurate sales forecasts, eliminating the need for cumbersome spreadsheets.

Effective forecasting is vital to optimize your sales pipeline and ultimately boost your bottom line. To achieve this, establish a regular forecasting process where both sales managers and representatives commit to and project their best-case numbers. This not only enhances transparency but also fosters accountability for individual performance.

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

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

By embracing these practices, whether you're a sales manager or representative, you'll gain better insights into your sales pipeline and ultimately drive more reliable results.

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

1. Target displays 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. Target line uses a purple dashed line to show the target total in the forecast tracker.
3. Forecast Figures/Live Figures allows you to toggle between forecast and live totals for committed and best case opportunities. Forecast figures come from forecast submissions. Live figures are aggregates of all your live opportunities in the committed and best case forecast categories, including opportunity-level overrides.
   • Forecast figure lines show timelines of forecast submissions and the expected progress of opportunities based on these submissions. The green dashed line is for committed figures and the yellow dashed line is for best case figures. Each point represents a forecast submission.
   • Live figure lines show timelines of how the won opportunities totals are expected to change based on close dates scheduled during that fiscal period, considering any overrides you've made. The solid green line is for committed figures and the solid yellow line is for best case figures. Each point represents an opportunity close date.
4. Show Previous allows you to see previous forecasts, in case more than one has been submitted.
5. Submit allows you to submit new forecast numbers.

As a Sales Manager, at any time you can submit a new forecast. You can inform the new forecast of the Committed and Best Case scenarios, as well as an optional comment explaining your submission:

There are 5 options to submit figures into the forecast:

• Last Submission uses the same forecasted numbers you submitted last time. Available for Sales Managers and sales representatives.
• Sales Unit Rollup aggregates the forecast numbers last submitted by the sales representatives in your child units. It is available only for sales managers with sales units reporting to them.
• Live Rollup aggregates all the opportunities in your pipeline including your simulations. Available for sales managers and reps.
• Predictive Rollup suggests forecast numbers based on opportunities that are very likely to be won (score 75-99) and likely to be won (score 50-74). The system suggests the forecast numbers and you cannot edit them.
• Manual Assignment manually enters committed and best case numbers in the forecast details.

To view Forecast Submissions:

You can view the forecasts submitted by your sales representatives and override them if required. In the Sales Unit Rollup tab, select the Info icon beside the sales unit to view forecast submissions, and override data at employee level. Choose Not Submitted to see a list of employees who have not submitted forecasts. You can also submit your own forecasts using numbers submitted by your reps.

To view Variances in Forecast:

You can see the two largest variances for the selected period. Hover over the variance to see details across forecast categories. Clicking the variance directs you to Pipeline Flow, where you can see how opportunities have changed between the two forecast submissions.

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

1. Override opportunities

   Under Opportunities, you can adjust the amount and forecast category of any opportunity in your forecast, and visualize how the changes impact your revenue estimate in real time.

   Click the Edit icon in the field and select Override to make changes. After you edit an opportunity, the changes you made are written back to opportunity records in the system. Opportunity overrides are strictly for simulation purposes and are only visible to the sales managers and the sales representative assigned to the opportunity.

2. Toggle opportunities

   Toggle out an opportunity to remove it from your forecast. You can also toggle in a pipeline opportunity that is still at an early stage in its cycle if you believe it can be closed eventually.

3. View live rollup

   You can immediately see your simulation changes in the forecast tracker chart and decide whether to keep or revert your override adjustments.

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