Analyze: See forecast projection
Who's this for:
Where:
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Deals > Analytics > Trends
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Deals > Forecast > click a forecast category > Forecast tab
Plan: Working with Gong Forecast requires a Forecast seat.
Use our projection tool to forecast more accurately and understand where you'll land this month or quarter, or in a future period. While for forecasting you need to know your pipeline inside out, with projection, you can also use your historical sales to call a more precise number.
The tool enables you to project where you'll land based on:
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Actual sales - What you've already got in the bag, which is the sum of all qualifying closed-won deals, according to the target attainment defined in your Forecast settings.
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Weighted pipeline - We look at the comparative time in the month or quarter you are in, and give the deals in each stage of your current pipeline weight based on the historical win rate for the same time and stage. Read more about how we calculate win rates below.
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Expected deals - How much you can anticipate from newly-created, pulled-in, or pushed-in deals, based on the historical win rate for such deals in the chosen period. Read more about expected deals below.
After you select a previous period to base the projection on, we use the historical win rates to calculate how much you're likely to close:
Furthermore, each projection takes into account the following factors:
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Line of business - our calculations are based on actual sales, the current pipeline, and historical data for the selected line of business.
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Close date - the current pipeline includes deals that are set to close in the selected period only.
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Team or individual - the current pipeline includes deals that are owned by the selected team or individual only.
Drill into how we came to the projection number, based on the selected period.
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In the projection widget, click See the math.
The side panel opens, showing the actual sales, weighted pipeline, and expected deals that go into the projected number.
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Select a different historical period to change the projection according to a different sales cycle.
Weighted pipeline is calculated as follows:
The historical win rate for each stage is calculated for the same time in period:
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We divide each quarter into 3 parts: month 1, month 2, month 3, and note which part of the current quarter you are in.
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We compare the current pipeline per stage to the win rate* of the equivalent part of the historical quarter.
* Win rate means how many open deals were closed-won by end of quarter.
Expected deals are calculated as follows:
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Number of expected deals: The number of deals for the forecast period, including newly created deals, pulled in (from future periods) deals, and pushed in (from past period) deals.
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Avg of expected deals: The average value of expected deals for the equivalent historical period.
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Win rate of expected deals: The percentage of expected deals that were closed-won by end of the equivalent historical period.
Note
When selecting more than 1 period to base the projection on (i.e. more than 1 quarter), the number of deals is also averaged.
See the trend for a selected period.
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Go to Deals > Analytics > Trends, and in the trend chart, turn on Projection.
Pick a future period in the Trends report page to see how your future pipeline in shaping up. You'll see the future period in the timeframe of the current quarter so that you can see the weekly progress toward the chosen period.
In "See the math", the projection is based on the selected based period. Note that the base period is a closed period. This means that you'll see the projection for the future based on the closed period rather than the current period.
When looking at the Actual sales, it is normal to see a zero figure. This indicates that you haven't yet closed any deals in the future period.
Coming soon: At the moment, our projection for future periods does not include pushed deals. We're working on adding this to a future version of this report.