Managing External Data to Include in Pipeline Forecasts

Data Access and Availability

The data in a custom column is stored in custom number and custom currency fields added to the Forecasting Custom Data object. Users with access to import data and who have the Manage Forecasts Custom Data permission can load and manage data to those custom fields for themselves and their subordinates in the forecast hierarchy.

Users who also have the View All Forecasts permission can manage data for all users in the forecast hierarchy.

Data Preparation

Import data to the custom fields in the Forecasting Custom Data object using Data Loader. If you need more flexibility than what Data Loader provides, use Enterprise API. To use either method, ensure that API access is enabled and prepare a .csv file that contains these columns.

• User ID
• Forecast Type ID
• Period Start Date (yyyy-mm-dd or yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss.sssZ; for example, 2012–03–01T08:00:00.00Z)
• A column each for the data you want to load

If you use territory forecasts, include a Territory ID column. If you use product family forecasts, include a Product Family column.

To help organize the .csv file, you can also include columns for Forecast Owner Name and Forecast Type Name, but those columns aren’t required. Here’s an example .csv file setup, with Stretch Quota as the reference data to load.

Data Mapping

When you complete the import, map the columns in your .csv file to the ForecastingCustomData object as shown in this table.