1. Working with Sales Planning
  2. Working with Advanced Sales Forecasting
  3. Performing Generic Sales Forecasting
  4. Improving Forecast Accuracy with Predictions

Improving Forecast Accuracy with Predictions

If you have historical data, you can use Predictive Planning to get insight into a data driven forecast, which leads to better forecast accuracy.

Running Predictive Planning predicts future values for the remaining forecast or rolling forecast periods, leaving the guesswork out of setting your forecast commitments. When you run a prediction, historical data for each member on the form is retrieved and then analyzed using time series forecasting techniques to predict the future performance for these members. The more years of historical data you have, the more accurate the prediction will be.

You can copy the results of a prediction and paste them into a scenario. For example, you can take the Best Case from a prediction and paste it into future periods of your Forecast Working scenario.

  1. From the Home page, click Advanced Sales Forecasting Advanced Sales Forecasting icon, then click Generic Generic icon, and then click Revenue Predictions to make predictions at a territory or resource level, or Predictions by Customer Product to make predictions at a more granular level by customer or product, if your administrator enabled these dimensions and loaded data at a detailed level.

  2. From the Actions menu, select Predictive Planning.

    The prediction runs, and a results area opens below the form with a chart and detailed information about the prediction.

    Use the results to compare the predicted values to your values for each member, along with values for worst case and best case scenarios.

    See Predicting Future Values Based on Past Performance for more information about working in the prediction area.

    You can also change the chart display and change historical and future date ranges for the prediction. See Customizing the Chart.

  3. After running the prediction, you can change the scenario in the POV to see the prediction results: From Scenario, click What-Ifs, and then click Conservative, Best Case, or Worst Case.
  4. If you want, you can copy the results of one of the prediction scenarios to one of your forecast scenarios. In the Prediction area, click PastePaste Prediction icon, then select the Paste options, then click Paste, and click Save. Paste options:
    • Results—Which predicted values to copy, and the scenario to paste them to.
    • Prediction Range—The range of values to paste—the entire prediction range, or the number of periods you specify.
    • Members—Whether to paste values for only the currently selected member or all members on the form.
    For example, you can copy the Best Case values from the prediction and paste them to your forecast Best Cast scenario.

The Forecast Summary form is updated with prediction results for each scenario.

Tutorials

Tutorials provide instructions with sequenced videos and documentation to help you learn a topic.

Your Goal Learn How
Learn how to make forecast predictions, and analyze forecast data using Advanced Sales Forecasting. You also review the pipeline coverage, and the forecast summary to see the target, predicted revenue, forecast commitment, and forecast adjustments and you adjust forecast commitments.

video png Predicting, Forecasting, and Analyzing with Sales Planning