Forecasting Prerequisites

This chapter describes the prerequisites that must be satisfied before you set up Siebel Forecasting. It includes the following topics:

About Using the Periods Table in Forecasting

The Periods table includes lengths of time such as weeks, months, quarters, and years. While some organizations use standard calendar reporting periods, other organizations use fiscal reporting periods. Siebel Business Applications provide flexibility in this area, so organizations can set up periods that make sense for them.

Because forecasting often goes months or years into the future, it is important to establish periods not just for the current month or quarter, but for several quarters or years in advance. Ideally, create enough periods to allow at least a few months of forecasting without having to go back into the Periods table every time someone needs to forecast.

Generally, make sure periods are contiguous (for example, one period ends on January 31st and the next period begins on February 1st), and regular (for example, periods are whole calendar months or always go from the 15th of one month to the 14th of the next month).

Typically, the smaller lengths of time, such as months, fit into the larger lengths of time, such as quarters. The beginning of a month often coincides with the beginning of a quarter, or the end of a month coincides with the end of a quarter.

The following table illustrates how the periods defined for forecasting can look.

Period Name	Period Type	Start Date	End Date
Jan 04	Month	1/1/2004	1/31/2004
Feb 04	Month	2/1/2004	2/28/2004
Mar 04	Month	3/1/2004	3/31/2004
Q1 04	Quarter	1/1/2004	3/31/2004
Y 04	Year	1/1/2004	12/31/2004

While there are many other ways to establish periods in Siebel Business Applications, contiguous, regular small periods, which fit nicely into the larger periods, are recommended. For information on how to set up periods, see the chapter that discusses ongoing administrative tasks in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

About Using the Currencies Table in Forecasting

The currencies table includes each of the currencies that an organization refers to when creating opportunities, quotes, orders, and forecasts in Siebel Business Applications.

Currencies can be assigned to divisions. The employees belonging to those divisions have that currency as their default currency. When those employees create new opportunities, the opportunities use the default (divisional) currency for that employee. The employee can accept the default currency for the majority of their opportunities, and can change the currency for occasional exceptions to the rule.

For example, an employee working in Germany can typically manage opportunities with German companies in the euro currency. That same employee can occasionally manage opportunities with British companies in British pounds. The employee’s divisional currency is the euro, but the employee can also create opportunities denominated in British pounds.

Charts, reports, and forecasts in Siebel Forecasting refer to divisional currencies. When opportunities and products are shown, they are shown in their native currency, that is, the currency entered by the user. Native currencies are converted automatically for users into their divisional currencies when displayed in a chart or report, or when displayed as totals for an employee in a forecast.

Organizations that use multiple currencies must set up exchange rates to convert monetary data from one currency to another. For more information on setting up currencies, see the chapter that discusses ongoing administrative tasks in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

About Setting Up Currency Exchange Rates for Forecasting

The Siebel application uses Currency Exchange Rates to convert monetary amounts from one currency to another. To calculate exchanges between currencies, you must set up an exchange rate twice—one for each currency. For instance, if you want to calculate the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen, you must set up an exchange rate for yen to dollars, and set up another rate for dollars to yen.

Currency exchange rates not found in Siebel Business Applications are assumed to be on a 1:1 basis. For additional information about setting up exchange rates, see the chapter that discusses ongoing administrative tasks in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

About Using Units of Measurement in Forecasting

Companies with global business models often sell the same product in different geographies using different units of measurement. For example, cable can be sold by the yard in the U.S and the same cable can be sold by the meter in Germany.

As another example, chemical and oil and gas companies would require forecasting volumes for production planning purposes. Sales representatives can forecast product revenues with appropriate units of measurement for their customers. For volumes, the most common volume units are gallons, quarts, and liters, but Siebel Forecasting allows you to define other units of measurement.

Because, for example, the volume or length for a single product can be forecast in different units of measurement, it is necessary to convert quantities to the same unit of measurement before they can be rolled up. The Administration - Data, then Unit of Measurement Conversion view allows you to define how the units of measurement in a particular category are converted to the other units of measurement in that category, based on the conversion factor set for the category. For more information, see Setting Up Units of Measurement Conversion for Forecasting.

Each participant in a forecast series must set up their preferred units of measurement in each category, as described in Setting a Default Unit of Measurement. When forecasts are rolled up, the values are converted to the unit of measurement specified by the manager to which the forecasts are rolled up. For example, if a manager has two subordinates whose preferred units of measurement are gallons and quarts respectively, the forecasts are converted to use the manager’s preferred unit of measurement, say gallons, when rolling up occurs.

If you need to define new units of measurement or new categories of UoM, you must define them in the Administration - Data, then, then List of Values view. You create units of measurement and categories with Type UOM_CD. For new units of measurement, select the appropriate category from the Parent LIC field. For new categories, the Parent LIC field must be blank.

About Units of Measurement and Product Definitions

For products that use a unit of measurement, you must select the appropriate value in the Unit of Measure field in the Administration - Product, then Product Definitions view.

However, Siebel Forecasting can use units of measurement such as kilometer, meter, and mile that are not available in the Product Definitions view. For such units of measurement, the values must be defined for both the LOV Type UNIT_OF_MEASURE, and the LOV Type UOM_CD. For example, to define values for kilometer, meter, and mile, navigate to the Administration - Data, then List of Values view, and create the records shown in the following table for Type UNIT_OF_MEASURE:

Type	Display Value	Language-Independent Code	Language Name	Parent LIC
UNIT_OF_MEASURE	Meter	Meter	English-American	One-Time
UNIT_OF_MEASURE	Miles	Miles	English-American	One-Time
UNIT_OF_MEASURE	Kilometer	Kilometer	English-American	One-Time

Setting Up Units of Measurement Conversion for Forecasting

To convert between different units of measurement you must set up the appropriate conversion data in the Administration - Data, then Unit of Measurement Conversion view. A number of conversions in the categories Length, Volume, and Weight are supplied:

Length. Conversions between the Mile and Kilometer and Meter.
Weight. Conversions between the Pound and Kilogram and Gram.
Volume. Conversions between the Gallon and Quart and Liter.

You must define the other conversions that you require. To define a unit of measurement conversion, complete the steps in the following procedure.

To create a unit of measurement conversion

Navigate to the Administration - Data screen, Unit of Measurement Administration, and then Unit of Measurement view.

Create a new record and complete the required fields

Some fields are described in the following table.

Field Name	Description
Category	Defines the category of unit of measurement used. Select from Length, Volume, and Weight. The category selected determines the units of measurement available in the From UoM and To UoM fields.
From UoM	The unit of measurement from which to convert.
To UoM	The unit of measurement to which to convert.
Conversion Factor	The factor used in the conversion of units of measurement.

Note: The Preview field in the Unit of Measurement form displays values according to the values selected in the From UoM, To UoM and Conversion Factor fields.

About Setting Up Employee Positions and Employee Reporting Structure for Forecasting

Siebel Forecasting relies on employee positions and positional hierarchies when creating a forecast. The forecast participants must appear in the employee table and have a position to create a forecast. Employee relationships between a manager and an employee are established by way of the parent position field on the employee’s position record and on the organization to which they belong.

For more information on adding employees and employee relationships, see the chapter that discusses initial setup in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Alternatively, for a forecast of type My Revenues - Indirect Sales, you can define a forecast-specific hierarchy in the Forecast Series Participants view. For more information about defining a forecast-specific hierarchy, see Setting Up Customer Adaptive Forecasting.

About Revenue Classes and Revenue Types

An opportunity, account, project, or campaign can be related to many different kinds of revenue at the same time. For instance, an opportunity can have a Booked revenue amount that is realized when the opportunity is closed, and that same opportunity can have Billed revenue amounts as services are provided to a customer over time.

The Revenue Class and Revenue Type fields allow users to categorize their revenues for grouping, sorting, and summarization purposes. By default, the Revenue Class field includes values like 1-Pipeline, 2-Upside, 3-Expected, 4-Committed, and 5-Closed. The Revenue Type field includes values like Booked, Billed, Shipped, Projected, Quota, and Actual.

Caution: Inspect the values in the Revenue Type and Revenue Class fields before rolling out Siebel Sales and avoid changing these lists of values after users have begun using Siebel Sales, as this can result in data integrity issues. If you must change these values after Siebel Sales is deployed, be sure to clean up the revenue records in the database that refer to the obsolete values.

For more information about setting up lists of values, see the chapter that discusses working with lists of values in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

About Forecasting System Preferences

The following system preferences are relevant to forecasting:

Forecast: Auto-Forecast. Creates subordinate’ forecasts to be used in a rollup forecast, if the subordinates have not created forecasts themselves.
Forecast: Use Server Task. Sends forecast processing requests to the Siebel Server for batch processing. If the value is False, requests are processed in real time.

For more information about setting system preferences, see the chapter that discusses ongoing administrative tasks in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Forecast: Auto-Forecast System Preference

The value of the Forecast: Auto-Forecast system preference determines whether subordinates’ forecasts are created, and whether they are rolled up into a manager’s forecast when the manager creates the forecast, as shown in the following table. The default value is TRUE.

When the Forecast: Auto-Forecast system preference has the value TRUE, a confirmation dialog is displayed to the manager upon forecast creation, only if one or more of the manager’s subordinates have not generated their forecast yet. When the manager clicks OK, forecasts are created for the subordinates. If all the subordinates have already generated their own forecast, the confirmation dialog is not displayed.

However, if the Enforce Forecast Creation user property of the Forecast 2000 - Forecast business component is defined and the user property has the value TRUE, the confirmation dialog is not displayed before the forecasts are created for the subordinates. The Enforce Forecast Creation user property is not defined by default.

System Preference Value	Subordinates’ Forecasts Status	Confirmation Dialog When Manager Creates Forecast (Gehavor)	Forecast Generation (Behavior)	Description
TRUE	Already created	No confirmation dialog displayed	Manager creates forecast and subordinates' revenues are pulled into manager's forecast	Everything works as expected
TRUE	Not created	Confirmation dialog displayed to manager	If manager clicks Yes in confirmation dialog, forecasts for subordinates are automatically created and their revenues are pulled into the manager's forecast. If manager clicks No, the forecast for subordinates is not created and their revenues are not pulled into the manager's forecast	If the manager clicks No in the confirmation dialog, the forecast status is Incomplete because subordinates' revenue items are not pulled in to the manager's forecast
FALSE	Already created	No confirmation dialog displayed	Manager creates forecast and subordinates' revenues are pulled into manager's forecast	Everything works as expected
FALSE	Not created	No confirmation dialog displayed	Manager creates forecast but subordinates' revenues are not pulled into manager's forecast	The forecast status is Incomplete because subordinates' revenue items are not pulled in to the manager's forecast

Forecast: Use Server System Preference

The value of the Forecast: Use Server system preference determines whether forecasts are generated on a separate Siebel component in the background as a batch job, or whether they are generated locally. This allows the client to work while the forecast is generated. The effect of this system preference varies for the different types of Siebel client as follows:

Mobile clients connected to a local database. The system preference is not applicable.
Mobile clients connected to the server. For these clients, the system preference determines whether the forecast is run on the Siebel Server. By default, it is set to FALSE. If set to TRUE, you can run forecasts on the server instead of the client when your mobile users are operating in a connected mode.
Web Clients. For these clients, the forecast is always generated on the Siebel Server, but the system preference determines whether the forecast is executed on the connected component, that is, the Callcenter OM, or on the Forecast OM:
- If you set the system preference to False, the forecast is calculated on the Callcenter OM, and therefore the client has to wait until the OM is finished.
- If you set the preference to True, the forecast is calculated on the Forecast OM and therefore the client can continue working as the job runs in the background as a batch job.

Before changing this setting, make sure that you provide the correct information in the configuration (.cfg) files on each client computer. In the ServerDataSrc section, make sure that you provide the correct settings for the GatewayAddress, EnterpriseServer, and RequestServer.

Also make sure that the Forecast Service Manager server component is enabled on enough application servers (at least one) to handle the amount of people who forecast. The Forecast Service Manager server component is a batch mode server component used to submit forecasts to the server when Forecast: Use Server Task system preference is enabled, when forecasts are not running on a local database, and when the user is either a manager or the view mode is other than My Forecast. The Forecast Service Manager server component allows users to create forecasts on the server in the background. In general it is a good idea to enable this server component. One reason not to enable it is if your forecasts are very small and can be done while a user waits. As such, if your organization is creating corporate snapshots, or forecasts with details, the server component must be enabled.

Note: If you use Resonate, do not specify the RequestServer parameter.