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Setting Up Customer Adaptive Forecasting

Forecast participants in large enterprises are typically part of a matrix organization where the reporting structure does not necessarily match the forecast rollup hierarchy. For such situations, the customer adaptive forecasting feature was introduced to provide support for a forecast-specific hierarchy.

Customer adaptive forecasting:

• Allows sales representatives to roll up and submit forecasts to managers outside of their reporting hierarchy
• Allows sales managers to view forecasts from cross-functional teams across organizations

Use customer adaptive forecasting if you have a matrix organization where the forecasting hierarchy is not always the same as the reporting hierarchy.

Do not use customer adaptive forecasting if you want to maintain the Siebel Position Based Reporting Hierarchy.

Setting up customer adaptive forecasting involves defining a forecast-specific hierarchy that is specific to a particular forecast series. Sales administrators do this by specifying the visibility of the forecast as My Revenues - Indirect Sales, and the Submit To position for each participant in the forecast series (as required). The forecast-specific rollup hierarchy that you define for a forecast series does not need to match the sales reporting hierarchy.

To create a forecast-specific forecast series

1. Navigate to the Administration - Forecast screen, then the Forecast Administration view.
2. Create a new forecast series where Visibility is set to My Revenues - Indirect Sales.

   For information about creating a forecast series, see Creating a Forecast Series.

   NOTE:  A forecast-specific hierarchy can only be defined for participants in a forecast series when the visibility for that forecast series is set to My Revenues - Indirect Sales.

3. Go to the Forecast Series Participants tab and:
   1. Add the appropriate participants to the forecast series.

      For information about adding participants, see Adding Participants to a Forecast Series.

   2. Define a forecast-specific hierarchy for participants in the forecast series.

      The forecast-specific hierarchy that you define for participants in a forecast series can be different to the sales reporting hierarchy. For more information, see Defining a Forecast-Specific Hierarchy For Participants in a Forecast Series.

      NOTE:  By default, according to the position hierarchy, all participants in a forecast series report their forecasts to their manager; that is, unless a forecast-specific hierarchy is defined for participants in the forecast.