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About Refreshing a Forecast

Managers forecasts can contain subordinate's forecasts that are not up-to-date because subordinates can add revenue records to their forecast after the manager creates his forecast.

However, a manager can see which of his forecasts contains subordinate's updated forecasts by means of the Refresh Alert column in the Forecast List view. (A Refresh Alert flag is set for the forecast containing the subordinate's updated forecasts.) The manager can drill down on such a forecast and navigate to the Subordinate view. In the Subordinate view, the Forecast Updated field contains a check mark for each subordinate forecast that has been updated. The manager can then click the Refresh button in the Subordinate view to update his forecast. The Forecast Updated field is then unchecked and the Refresh Alert flag is reset indicating that the refresh of the forecast is completed. The entire forecast is not re-created; it is only updated with the changed revenue records. The refresh process flow is shown in Figure 2.

The refresh functionality is applicable only to the first level subordinate in the hierarchy. Therefore, a manager can refresh his direct subordinate forecasts but not the subordinate's subordinate forecasts. When a manager refreshes his forecast, his manager will see that the forecast is updated and that manager must refresh his or her forecast in turn.

If the manager has made any adjustment to the subordinate's revenue forecast, the adjusted values are not preserved after the refresh. The manager must then re-evaluate the newly-created records and adjust accordingly.

The refresh function works differently depending on whether the updated forecast is a Revenue Details or Summary Only type of forecast.

In a Summary Only forecast, the new revenue records are automatically pulled into the manager's Details view even before he clicks the Refresh button. However, the manager's forecast does not actually reflect the changes until he clicks the Rollup button to align the Summary and Details views (the system rolls up from the Summary view, or subordinate, and changes in the Details views are discarded if not aligned with the Summary). So clicking the Refresh button:

• Performs a rollup operation to align the Summary and Details views
• Resets the flag for the Refresh Alert column

In a Revenue Details forecast, the new revenue records are not automatically pulled into the manager's forecast. First, the alert flag is set so that the manager is aware of the subordinate's forecast revenue changes. So clicking the Refresh button:

• Pulls in the data from the subordinate's forecast into the manager's forecast
• Performs a rollup operation to align the Summary and Details views
• Resets the flag for the Refresh Alert Column

Figure 2. Refresh Process Flow

NOTE:  The refresh functionality does not work if a user deletes a forecast record and then recreates it. This generates a new row ID for the record and therefore breaks the association with the manager's forecast. The manager can then no longer see the subordinate's record, making a refresh impossible.