See forecast projection
- 5 minute read
- Contributors
See forecast projection
- 5 minute read
- Contributors
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Who's this for? Revenue Ops, Manager of Managers
Where to go?
Deals > Analytics > Trends
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:
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.
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.
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.
How it works
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:
Line of business - our calculations are based on actual sales, the current pipeline, and historical data for the selected line of business.
Close date - the current pipeline includes deals that are set to close in the selected period only.
Team or individual - the current pipeline includes deals that are owned by the selected team or individual only.
Tips
Change the historical period to change the outlook
See how factors such as market fluctuations and seasonal variations affect the forecast.
Change the historical period that the projection is based on.
See how win rates differ in different periods.
Check the projection weekly
See how the time in the quarter affects the projection.
At the beginning of the quarter, you lean on historical data more to call your number. As the quarter progresses and you close more deals in your pipeline, the projection is based increasingly on your actuals.
Come back regularly to learn how your actual sales changes the projection over the quarter.
See the math
Drill into how we came to the projection number, based on the selected period.
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.
Select a different historical period to change the projection according to a different sales cycle.
About weighted pipeline
Weighted pipeline is calculated as follows:
The historical win rate for each stage is calculated for the same time in period:
We divide each quarter into 3 parts: month 1, month 2, month 3, and note which part of the current quarter you are in.
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.
Example
It is week 2 of the quarter (i.e. the first part), and your projection is using the previous quarter as the historical period. In the Weighted pipeline area, deals in the Discovery stage show a historical win rate of 19.1%.
How did we get this number?
We took the win rate of month 1 of the previous quarter, where there were 115 deals in Discovery in month 1. Of those, 22 were closed-won by the end of the quarter, giving a win rate of 19.1%.
About expected deals
Expected deals are calculated as follows:
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.
Avg of expected deals: The average value of expected deals for the equivalent historical period.
Win rate of expected deals: The percentage of expected deals that were closed-won by end of the equivalent historical period.
Example
It is week 5 of the quarter, and your projection is $60.7k.
How did we get this number?
We took the number of your expected deals for the selected period: 10 (7 newly created + 1 pulled in + 2 pushed in).
Then we looked at the same week in the previous quarter, and saw that:
The average amount of a deal was $45k
15% of the deals were closed-won by the end of the quarter
We then multiplied these three numbers, as follows:
10 (# expected deals) x $45k (avg size) x 15 (win rate) = 60.7K
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 projection trend
See the trend for a selected period.
Go to Deals > Analytics > Trends, and in the trend chart, turn on Projection.
Look at the future
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.
FAQ
How much data do you need to show a projection?
Projection number: To show an overall projection, we need to have 1 full quarter of historical data, and have enough deals to calculate your weighted pipeline.
Note that even without a projection number, you may see information in Expected deals for the chosen period if you have partial data.
Weighted pipeline: To offer a number for weighted pipeline, we need to have at least 10 closed-won deals in over 50% of the pipeline stages in the historical period.
Expected deals: You must have at least 10 closed-won deals in the chosen historical period.
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