--- title: "Best practices" slug: "gong-forecast-set-up-best-practices" updated: 2026-02-25T13:52:46Z published: 2026-02-25T13:52:46Z --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.gong.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Best practices > **Who can use this**: Business admin > > **Available on**: Gong Forecast > > **Ideal for**: RevOps > **Where to go:**Revenue > Forecast Read these best practices before [setting up forecast boards](/v1/docs/set-up-forecast-boards) in your organization, in order to set up the most robust forecast motion that's suited to all your needs. ## Simple or aggregate forecasts? Forecasting in sales orgs is a critical tool for effective planning, performance evaluation, company financial management, and decision-making. It's important to have the forecasting mechanism optimized so that the numbers are always readily available for all stakeholders without the need for extensive processing of the bottom-up forecast data. ### Common types of forecast rollup The two most common ways to roll up forecasts are: - **Simple** forecasting - where each forecast category includes deals that are mapped to that category only - **Aggregate** forecasting (also known as *cumulative*) - where each forecast category combines deals that are mapped from multiple categories ### How Gong forecasts At Gong, we use aggregate forecasts. > “ **Essentially, the reason why is because as deals shift from one bucket to another, you want that to be signaling positive or negative...positive & negative signals are easy to understand.**” > > Michael Duncan, Director of RevOps, Gong In order to achieve an aggregate forecast, we set up our forecast categories like this: - Our **Commit** forecast category includes deals in the CRM forecast fields **Closed-won** and **Commit** - Our **Most Likely** forecast category includes deals in the CRM forecast fields **Closed-won**, **Commit**, and **Most Likely** - Our **Best Case** forecast category includes deals in the CRM forecast fields **Closed-won**, **Commit**, **Most Likely**, and **Best Case** ### Benefits of aggregate forecasting We recommend setting up aggregate forecasting for the following reasons: - It gives you a better understanding of the full story of your pipeline (i.e. which deals were won or lost) because as a deal moves category, you don’t see a reduction in your wider categories - It gives you the ability to see the natural range of where you’re going to land, i.e. somewhere between Commit and Best Case - It's easier to see numbers quickly without the need to recalculate as the time period progresses - meaning the numbers are always ready for a temperature check without extra work ### Why use simple forecasting? Given that there are many advantages to aggregate forecasting, you may wonder why or when to use simple forecasting. Simple is useful when you don’t need to roll up the numbers. For example, you may want to know the forecast for separate product lines or churn. ### How Gong forecasts for churn We'll use the churn example to explain how you can set up a forecast category for simple forecasting. You may want to include this as a column in a forecast board alongside the aggregated categories (that's what we do!). To achieve simple forecasting for churn, we set up an additional column as follows: - Our **Churn** forecast category includes deals in the CRM stage fields **Churn Risk**, **Save/Resell Value**, and **Groundswell**. This column does not aggregate, and is read-only, i.e. it is automatically populated (by turning on autofill - see step 4c, second bullet, in the [board setup article](/v1/docs/set-up-forecast-boards)) by deals that fit the selected stage fields. We can then offset the churn number against the aggregated forecast. ## Optimize your Salesforce setup **Who's this for?** Customers using Salesforce. Optimize your CRM setup so that deals automatically move forecast categories when they advance through deal stages, and get removed from the categories once the deal closes. This optimization is particularly recommended if you use Salesforce's out-of-the-box **Forecast Category** field, because it's very common to map each option in the **Opportunity Stage** to one of the options in **Forecast Category**'s picklist. This setup can cause deals to unexpectedly change forecast category in Gong as you update the deal stages. Therefore, we strongly recommend setting up a custom field for the forecast category. ### Step 1: Create a custom forecast field **Who's this for?** Salesforce admins 1. Go to **Object Manager**, and within the **Opportunity** object, create a new picklist field. 2. Give this field a unique and memorable name, for example, ***Forecast***. 3. Add the following options to the picklist: - **Commit**, **Most Likely**, & **Best Case**, or whatever forecast categories you use - **Closed**, which will be used to remove won deals from the forecast categories - **Omit**, which will be used to remove lost deals from the forecast categories > [!TIP] > Tip: > > If you already have the Forecast Category field, you can add all the same options you have there. Just make sure you add options for Omit and Closed if you don't have them. 4. Add the newly created field to the **Opportunity Page** layout, and anywhere else you need it, and at the same time, remove the forecast category field from those locations (if you have it). 5. Ensure that there's up-to-date data in the new field: - Have your reps start updating the new field manually OR - Load the value in the old **Forecast Category** field into the new **Forecast** field. 6. Go to **Flow**. 7. Build a flow that automatically updates the **Forecast** field as follows: See the next section for instructions on how to build a flow. 1. When the opportunity stage changes to **Closed Lost** (or equivalent), change the **Forecast** field to **Omit**. 2. When the opportunity stage changes to **Closed Won** (or equivalent), change the **Forecast** field to **Closed**. ### Step 2: Build a flow to remove lost and won deals from forecast categories **Who's this for?** Salesforce admins > [!NOTE] > Note: > > Some fields may be named something different in your Salesforce instance. 1. In the Salesforce Flow wizard, set the object to **Opportunity**. 2. Set the trigger to **A record is created or updated**. 3. Set the condition requirements to **All conditions are met**. 4. Add the following condition: - **Field**: **IsClosed** - **Operator**: **Equals** - **Value**: **True** 5. Click **Done**. 6. Add a **Decision** element that will branch the flow based on whether the deal is closed-won or closed-lost. 7. Edit the decision logic to accommodate both possible outcomes. 8. In each branch, add an **Update Triggering Record** element. - For won deals, customize the Record Update settings to make the desired change to the **Forecast** field. Example: - **Label**: **Set "Forecast" to Closed** - **How to find records to update and set their value**: **Use the opportunity record that triggered the flow** - **Set field values for the opportunity record** - **Field**: **Forecast__c** - **Value**: **Closed** - For lost deals, customize the Record Update settings to make the desired change to the **Forecast** field. Example: - **Label**: **Set "Forecast" to Omit** - **How to find records to update and set their value**: **Use the opportunity record that triggered the flow** - **Set field values for the opportunity record** - **Field**: **Forecast__c** - **Value**: **Omit** 9. Give the flow a name, and save it. 10. Activate the flow. ### Step 3: Set up in Gong 1. Import the new field you created in step 1 into Gong ( [learn how](/v1/docs/set-import-of-salesforce-fields)). 2. Create or update a forecast board ( [learn how](/v1/docs/set-up-forecast-boards)). 3. In the **Categories** area, for each category you use to forecast, set the CRM field to the newly created field, and add all values, with the exception of **Closed** and **Omit**. A team member who manages the business entities in Gong, such as deal and forecast boards. [Find my Business admin](/v1/docs/find-your-technical-or-business-admin). Gong’s full Forecast package for next-level forecasting and revenue optimization. Access to features depends on your [company’s plan and your assigned seat](/v1/docs/plans-and-seats). A team member who manages and optimizes revenue-related workflows by managing business entities such as metrics, targets, and dashboards.