Siebel Forecasting Guide > Troubleshooting >

Forecast Troubleshooting

The following issues may be encountered when you are working with forecasts.

Error Creating a Forecast

When creating a forecast, a user may experience the following error:

[1] An error occurred while creating your forecast. Forecast may not include all revenues or subordinate details. Please check the log file or contact your system administrator for details.

To find the source of this problem, administrators should check the forecast log file on their server. These files are typically located as follows:

If the instance is a Siebel Mobile Client (siebel.exe) installation:

If the instance is a Microsoft Windows server:

If the instance is a UNIX server:

A component can have many tasks running and generating logs. See Siebel Server Administration Guide for information about the location of log files.

In the log file, you will find records like this:

FCSTLOG_EVENT Error 1 2001-10-30 16:16:02 <WW Sales, 10/01/2001, Product Line Manager-00004456, BGROVES> Error occurred when setting field `Revenue Class" to value "Backlog"

The error in the previous example occurred on October 30th, 2001, when running a WW Sales forecast for a regional sales manager with the user ID of MSTERN. The error occurred because a revenue record that was to be included in the forecast included an invalid value for the Revenue Class picklist. In this example, the error can be corrected by adjusting the Revenue Class LOV to include a value called BackLog, or by changing the Revenue Class on the offending record to a choice that is still valid.

NOTE:  It is most likely in this example that the valid values for the Revenue Class field were changed and the old data was never cleaned up.

Once this issue is corrected, the forecast can be deleted and rerun, or the missing revenue record can be added manually.

Queries on the Forecast Detail View Affect Summary Views

Queries run in the Details view in the Forecasts screen affect the information shown in the Summary view in the Forecasts screen. End users may have to requery to see each of the forecast summary records after running a query on the forecast details.

Forecast Details View Shows Product Line Items That Were Deleted Before Creating the Forecast

While it is unlikely that any best practice would include the deletion of an opportunity that included revenue estimates, you do have the ability to delete an opportunity. If you delete an opportunity, but do not delete the associated revenues, then those revenues are maintained, and will be included in your next forecast. You should delete each revenue associated with the opportunity before deleting the opportunity if those revenues are not meant to be forecasted.

Forecasting a Global Account or Product

A global account or product can be forecasted three ways.

Global Account Forecast Snapshot

Perform a global forecast that pulls in only data from the key accounts or one account. Set the forecast's visibility to All Revenues and the Auto Forecast Search Spec to Account = `CompanyName*'.

NOTE:  This can also be done for a Product Line or Division.

Ad Hoc Global Account Revenues Screen

Predefined query is saved in the Revenues screen and used for EIS reporting, analytics, and exporting.

Define and save a predefined query in the Revenues screen as follows: Account = CompanyName and [Calculated Primary Flag] = `Y' (for opportunity level revenue management).

NOTE:  This can also be done for a Product Line or Division.

Account Revenues Management

Manage and evaluate revenues associated with an account from the Revenues view in the Accounts screen.

NOTE:  This can also be done by Product, Contact, Partner, or Project.

Adding a New Opportunity to a Forecast

When you add a new opportunity to a particular forecast (in the Person Opportunity Forecast Applet), this record will be updated to the S_OPTY_FCSTWD table. Specifically, each revenue detail is being stored in the specific DATAxx (DATA01, DATA02, and so on) columns in the table. Depending on which monthly bucket the revenue is falling in, the corresponding column (DATA01, DATA02, and so on) will be updated accordingly. The logic of deciding which column to be updated is hard-coded within the specialized class that the Forecast module is based on and is not configurable. The same logic is applied when you click the Rollup option to update the revenue in the forecast (in Person Forecast Stagger Chart Applet) except that the data is being stored in the S_PER_FCSTWD table instead.

Relationship Between Opportunities and Expected Delivery Date

The expected delivery date in the Opportunities screen Products view determines the column (month) into which that product falls in the forecasting views. For example, several opportunity products can be combined into one product forecast record. The value that is seen for January for product x might be an aggregation of several opportunity product records. If the date on one of those records is changed, thereby knocking it out of the forecast, other records might still remain with slightly lower quantities or a slightly different average price.


 Siebel Forecasting Guide 
 Published: 18 April 2003