Revamped forecasting in Zoho CRM

Revamped forecasting in Zoho CRM

Forecasting is an important part of a business's strategy to help set meaningful targets, optimize their sales strategies to help users achieve said target and drive revenue for the business.
With this in mind, we've brought a number of different enhancements to Zoho CRM's forecasting capabilities to help businesses understand their pipeline better, make accurate forecasts, set realistic targets, and help sales teams achieve them. Earlier in December, we briefed about these enhancements in forecasts in our Winter '21 announcement. We are thrilled to talk about these changes in detail here.

Create multiple and condition based forecasts across different periods

Businesses were limited to just a single forecast that encompasses all deals, but now you can create multiple forecasts, which can include all your deals or deals that match specified conditions, with a greater control of the forecast periods.
Forecasts can be created for all the available hierarchy:
  • Role/Reporting to
  • Territory


Forecasts can be created monthly or quarterly for the following forecast periods.
  • Current - 4 Quarters / 12 months of current fiscal year
  • Future - 4 Quarters / 12 months of the next fiscal year
  • Completed - The previous 2 fiscal years

 

Forecast types

Two forecasts types can be created which are based around the attribute that is used to set targets for your users:
  • Deal Revenue based forecasts - These are forecasts where the targets are based on currency fields like deal amount, expected revenue or other custom currency fields defined the deals module
  • Deal Quantity based forecasts - These are forecasts where the targets are based on system defined fields like "count of deals" and other custom number fields


Introducing Best Case and Committed deals under "Forecast Category"

In the current forecasting, deals only had three forecast categories that were associated with them.
  • Closed won - Deal was marked "Won"
  • Closed lost - Deal was marked "omitted"
  • Open - Deal was marked "Pipeline"
Now open deals can be tagged with new options under the forecast category:
  • Best case - Open deals that have a high chance of being won
  • Committed - Open deals that sales reps commit to winning
Instead of generalising all open deals as pipeline deals, this split gives a better picture as to where a particular sales rep stands in terms of the deals in their pipeline. This allows the administrator to make a more informed decision when setting targets for a particular user.

Sales reps also have the option to update the forecast category in a specific deal manually, to the appropriate option when the situation calls for it. The deal amount will then be updated in your forecast during its next sync

Transparent split of deals in your pipeline for optimal targets

When setting targets for your users, a popup with your pipeline data shows the split of deals to give you a better picture of where each user stands in-terms of sales numbers.
The deals are split into open and closed won deals, with the open deals being further split into best cases, committed and pipeline deals.

Zia offers target suggestions and predicts target achievement

When creating forecasts, there are two choices. They can be built from the ground up as a completely new forecast, or they can be linked and created from an existing forecast.
When creating a continuous forecast, Zia will calculate and suggest targets based on the historical data of your selected forecasts. This will be available in the forecast create page when setting targets.
The historical and current deal closure pattern of users will be analysed as well to give you the predicted target achievement for the users. Achievement predictions will be available in the target achievement report.

Compare your performance across different forecast periods

All your created forecasts will be available in a list view under the forecast module. You can now drill down into a particular forecast and compare how your business performance fared across the years.
Depending on the duration selected in the filter, the following data will be consolidated and shown at the top :
  • Total target
  • Achievement
  • Gap
Under the consolidated data, the forecast data for each quarter/month for the selected duration will be listed for a bird's eye view analysis. You can then drill down further to analyse the performance of individual users or roles if required.

Archived Forecast

The purpose of having forecasts is to keep track of the company's performance on various levels of the organization. Thus far, the forecast list view page shows data only for the completed two years, the current year, and one future year. So, as your business continues, you would be losing forecast records beyond two previous years. This clearly beats the purpose of having forecasts as the past data might still be significantly important. Hence, we have introduced archived forecasts as our latest enhancement.

  • The forecast list view displays up to 2 completed years' data. Now, the forecasts created beyond these two years will be archived automatically.
    For example, suppose the current forecast is for Q3 2021. The list view has records for completed forecasts since Q1 2019. The forecasts before Q1 2019 would be archived.
  • If a forecast configuration is edited, the current and future forecasts based on old configuration will be deleted while the completed forecasts will be archived.
    For the above example of point 1, if you edit the hierarchy or any other configuration, the completed forecasts will be archived, and the current forecast for Q3 2021 will be deleted along with any future forecasts created.
When will forecasts be archived?
  1. Completed forecasts over two years from the current year will be archived. For example, if the current year is 2022, forecasts of 2021, and 2019 will be available on the forecast list view page. Forecasts older than 2019 will be archived.
  2. Forecasts will be archived automatically upon editing forecast configuration- changing either the hierarchy or forecast type.
    For example if the Hierarchy is Reporting To, and its changed to Territory, or edit the forecast type, the existing forecasts would be archived.
  3. Forecast will be archived if the hierarchy preferences are modified in Company Details.
In the archived forecast page, the forecasts are listed in chronological order. You can also filter them based on Hierarchy, Forecast Type, and Time.


Notes
  • The archived forecasts cannot be edited, they are just for viewing purposes. Users can delete a forecast.
  • Up to 5 years of forecasts records would be available as archive.
  • Changing when the Fiscal Year of your org begins, say changing it from January to April, will delete all the existing forecasts as well as the archived forecasts.

Empowering forecast managers

Forecast managers can now build their own forecasts and assign targets to their role, their own target, their peers and sub roles & users. Individual teams can have their own distinct forecasts and targets which can be focused on. These forecasts will be visible for the Admin, CEO and the forecast manager of a higher role who can monitor these forecasts and update them when needed.
If a forecast manager's target has been modified by the CEO, admin or a forecast manager from a higher role, the modified target is locked and cannot be changed by the forecast manager.

That's all about the enhancements. For more details check out our help page Creating and Working with Forecasts.

We have opened this new forecast for all users subscribed to the paid editions of Zoho CRM, in all DCs. For users who are currently using the old forecasts, they will have the option to switch to new forecast till June end. Post which, it will be mandatory to switch to the new forecasts to access the forecast module.
 
Looking forward to hearing from you.

    Access your files securely from anywhere







                            Zoho Developer Community




                                                  • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                  • Digest


                                                  • Functions


                                                  • Meetups


                                                  • Kbase


                                                  • Resources


                                                  • Glossary


                                                  • Desk Marketplace


                                                  • MVP Corner


                                                  • Word of the Day


                                                  • Ask the Experts





                                                            Manage your brands on social media



                                                                  Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                      Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                        Zoho Books Resources


                                                                          Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                            Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                              Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                Qntrl Resources


                                                                                  Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                      Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                      • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                        CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                      • Kaizen

                                                                                        Kaizen

                                                                                      • Functions

                                                                                        Functions

                                                                                      • Meetups

                                                                                        Meetups

                                                                                      • Kbase

                                                                                        Kbase

                                                                                      • Resources

                                                                                        Resources

                                                                                      • Digest

                                                                                        Digest

                                                                                      • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      • MVP Corner

                                                                                        MVP Corner









                                                                                          Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                          Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                          Get Started Now


                                                                                            Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                              Zoho Writer

                                                                                              Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                              Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                                                                                  Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                      ご検討中の方




                                                                                                              • Recent Topics

                                                                                                              • Assign multiple departments to multiple helpcenters

                                                                                                                Hi there! I have a reseller company for a software and I'm using Zoho Desk as my helpcenter and ticket management system. The software is great and I would like to make a suggestion! With multi-branding activated, your departments that visible in help
                                                                                                              • Zoho Desk Training

                                                                                                                Hello, We've had Zoho desk for a while now, but we run into issues occasionally, and I was wondering if there was a customer who currently uses it and really enjoys the functionality, that would be wiling to chat with us?
                                                                                                              • PO Based Advance payment to Vendor

                                                                                                                We recommend to introduce a provision at PO to make advance payment to vendors and auto apply that advance paid later at the time of Vendor Bill submission for that PO. This will help us track PO-wise Total Payments.
                                                                                                              • How to get Quickbooks Desktop Info into Zoho?

                                                                                                                Our team has used Quickbooks desktop for years and is looking at switching to Zoho books in 2026. I want to bring all old sales history over since we use Zoho CRM. I can export Item sales history and generic sales orders from Quickbooks desktop. How do
                                                                                                              • ZeptoMail API Request

                                                                                                                We tried to send mail using ZeptoMail using Django. Following is my payload {'from': {'address': 'abc@abc.com'}, 'to': [{'email_address': {'address': 'xyz@xyz.in', 'name': 'Bhavik'}}], 'subject': 'Report Name', 'htmlbody': '<p>Test</p>'} Following is
                                                                                                              • Mass import of documents into Zoho Writer

                                                                                                                I'm using Google's word processor at the moment but feel that Zoho does a better job (on the online apps market). Iwant to move my documents (about 50-70) to Zoho but it seems to me that I have to import them seperately. Is it already possible to upload several documents at a time or is this a forthcoming feature? Cheers Rolli :?:
                                                                                                              • Add home page or dashboard in CRM customer portal

                                                                                                                is it possible to add home page or dashboard in CRM customer portal?
                                                                                                              • User Tips: How to change the the label display name of a system defined field

                                                                                                                Most users know how to change field label names via Settings > Modules & Fields but if you want to change the name of a system defined field you can’t as there is no “edit properties” option.  However with a simple hack you can edit any system defined
                                                                                                              • Search not working!

                                                                                                                I have items in my notebook tagged but when I search for a tag nothing comes up! Any fix for this?
                                                                                                              • Zoho CRM Community Digest - October 2025 | Part 1

                                                                                                                Hello Everyone! Here's a quick recap of first two weeks of October! Product Updates: Zoho CRM Android App Update: Surveys, Blueprints, and Smarter Mobile Features! Zoho CRM’s Android app just got a useful upgrade. You can now share records, upload your
                                                                                                              • Automate onboarding emails with CRM Workflow and Accounts module

                                                                                                                We’re a B2B SaaS company selling to public-sector organisations. Each organisation is stored as an Account in Zoho CRM, and each organisation typically has multiple associated Contacts. Our backend syncs product-usage data (setup status, user activity,
                                                                                                              • Important update: Enhanced security measures for account operations in Zoho Cliq

                                                                                                                Greetings from the Zoho Cliq team! We’d like to share an important security update that has an influence on some admin actions such as password reset, MFA reset, and MFA backup code generation. What’s changing? With our latest security enhancements, these
                                                                                                              • Sales Receipts Duplicating when I run reports why and how do we rectify this and any other report if this happens

                                                                                                                find attached extract of my report
                                                                                                              • No Functional Autosave or Manual Save Button

                                                                                                                Application : Zoho Notebook So I wanted to try Zoho Notebook(On Ubuntu) as an application, I installed the application and went solving my LeetCode problems visually(Drawing mode), at one point the app just stopped saving anything... Every time I tried
                                                                                                              • Enterprise subscription support

                                                                                                                My organization sells subscription services to enterprise customers, which is a different model from the consumer subscription model that Zoho Billing has been designed to support and I beleve this capability should be added. An enterprise subscription
                                                                                                              • Issue with Creator's IF logic

                                                                                                                Hi, I found the following code produces unexpected results: if(-1.0 < 0.0000000) {       info "True"; } else {       info "False"; } if(-1.0 < 0.000000) {       info "True"; } else {       info "False"; } The output returned is: False True However, the
                                                                                                              • Need option to send Package PDF in shipment email (Shipment PDF is missing Lot info)

                                                                                                                Is there any way to automatically attach the Package PDF instead of (or alongside) the Shipment PDF in the notification emails? We really need this feature because the default Shipment PDF creates a blind spot for our customers. It does not display Batch/Lot
                                                                                                              • zoho creator view is not present in the workspace and blank reports

                                                                                                                Hi Support,  Users who have "write" permissions keep getting this error for all of our embedded reports all of a sudden. See screen shot below: Meanwhile, my developer permissions account sees a blank screen in view and edit mode as shown in the screenshots
                                                                                                              • Customize portal email template

                                                                                                                Can i fetch only first name of the user in portal email template instead of the below code Hi ${User.FULL_NAME}
                                                                                                              • Can't we let users decide which options they'd like to add at embed widget?

                                                                                                                It seems embed widget DOES NOT offer a feature, where users can choose options upon subscribing plans. What Zoho has instead, is that admins have to manually create plan with options. How come no one in Zoho dev team never raised issue about usability
                                                                                                              • Reupload and rename from one field to another field (file upload)

                                                                                                                Hi Everyone, Sorry, i have question to use invoke url for rename and reupload attachments file to another field. Tested on development mode. Zoho C6. Refer to https://www.zoho.com/creator/help/api/v2/upload-file.html look my error notification. Does anyone
                                                                                                              • Printing Multi-Page Reports (PDF Export)

                                                                                                                Hi, I am moving a report from Google's Looker Studio to Zoho Analytics and trying to reproduce the Looker page by page dashboard editing experience. With Google, what you see is what you get when you print to PDF. But I can't seem to create the same experience
                                                                                                              • I NEED TO NUMBER TO TEXT NO HERE

                                                                                                                =NUMBERTEXT NEEED
                                                                                                              • Error: View is not present in the workspace

                                                                                                                When saving a dashboard, user receives a popup with the following error. "View is not present in the workspace" What does this mean or refer to? There is no further insight given.
                                                                                                              • Dear Zoho CEO: Business Growth is about how you prioritise!

                                                                                                                All of us in business know that when you get your priorities right, your business grows. Zoho CRM and Zoho Books are excellent products, but sadly, Zoho Inventory continues to lag behind. Just this morning, I received yet another one-sided email about
                                                                                                              • Bin Locations

                                                                                                                Dear all, I am wondering if someone has the ability to develop the bin locations option for zoho inventory (integrated with zoho books) Regards, Ryan
                                                                                                              • Create and populate a record in an instant: Introducing zero-shot field prompting to Zia's ICR

                                                                                                                A couple of months ago, we upgraded our in-house AI image detection and validation tool, Zia Vision, with intelligent character recognition (ICR). By training Zia with sample images, you could create and enrich CRM records with data extracted from standard
                                                                                                              • How to Prevent Users From Skipping LMS Videos in Zoho People

                                                                                                                How to Prevent Users From Skipping LMS Videos in Zoho People Hello Zoho Developers, In this blog, we will quickly look at how you can stop users from skipping or fast-forwarding videos in Zoho People LMS. Zoho People provides a feature called Disable
                                                                                                              • [Integration Edition] Deluge Learning Series – Custom API with Deluge | November 2025

                                                                                                                We’re excited to conclude this four-month Integration Edition of the Deluge Learning Series: Session 1 – Integrating Zoho Apps with Deluge Using Built-In Integration Tasks Session 2 – Integrating Zoho Apps with Deluge Using invokeURL and invokeAPI Session
                                                                                                              • Tips for Organizing Workflows and Improving Team Coordination in Zoho

                                                                                                                Hi everyone, I’m looking for some general advice on how different teams are organizing their daily work within Zoho’s apps. Our team recently expanded, and we’re trying to streamline how tasks, discussions, and documents are shared so everything stays
                                                                                                              • Prevent user from viewing all records?

                                                                                                                I have a report that is meant to be used by vendors to view only the records that are assigned to them. All the vendor information is stored in a separate application, so I need to call a function to get the current user's ID (not the zoho user ID). The report settings criteria doesn't support using function calls, so instead I'm embedding the report in an html page like this: if (thisapp.Global.CurrentUserIs("Vendor")) {       personID = common.getLoggedInPersonID();       query = "Assigned_Vendor.ID="
                                                                                                              • Zoho Site pages not displaying in iframes

                                                                                                                I simply want to show a Zoho Site page inside an iframe on another non Zoho website. When testing this across many browsers, the iframe content simply does not appear. IE reports that the host does not allow their content to be displayed in iframes. Very disappointing. Is there a way around this please? Here is the URL of the page I would like to appear in an iframe. http://ips-properties-to-rent.zohosites.com
                                                                                                              • ZUG Meet-ups are back - Across India (December 2025)

                                                                                                                The Zoho User Group (ZUG) meet-ups are back, and this time, we’re travelling across India to reconnect with our amazing community! From Chennai to Delhi, Bengaluru to Mumbai, we can’t wait to meet you all in person and talk everything Zoho SalesIQ, automation,
                                                                                                              • Zoho Inventory as connector in Zoho Creator

                                                                                                                Hello, It doesn't appear that Zoho Inventory is one of the many built in connectors in Zoho Creator? I see that there are non-Zoho inventory applications that have built in connectors such as Cin7, which leads me to believe that I'm missing something
                                                                                                              • Send Zoho Forms Link using Zoho CRM Email Templates

                                                                                                                I have set up Zoho Forms and CRM integration to pre-populate data from Zoho CRM to Zoho Forms. The setup is working fine. I have also created an email template in the Zoho CRM deals module to send Zoho forms links. So when I send an email using that template
                                                                                                              • My go to On Load Client Script - Fast, efficient, and works for ALL profiles; Hides everything except initial fields

                                                                                                                This is my on Load client script that I use for Create pages. I use a modified version for Edit and Display pages which you can create yourself using the same basic structure that I will give you below. First up, the script. Below that will be an explanation
                                                                                                              • Custom Search using HTM+CSS Snippet

                                                                                                                Suppose I wanted to create my own list view using HTML and CSS snippets inside a Page with a custom search input at the top of the list (not the Search snippet). Without Javascript, is there a way to retrieve a user's entry from that search input and
                                                                                                              • Zoho CRM Kiosk Upload Files

                                                                                                                Hello all, We are trying out Kiosks at the moment to see where it can fit best in our business. We are still a bit off in the application but lets say we will sort this out. My question is the following - when I create a Kiosk I can add "File Upload"
                                                                                                              • Double opt-in notifications and customizable confirmation messages for your webforms

                                                                                                                Dear CRM Community, We are excited to announce a major upgrade to our Webforms feature. You can now customize the confirmation message shown to your users who double opt-in from your webform and also customize your confirmation emails when they submit
                                                                                                              • Has Anyone successfully integrated Zoho and Sage Intact?

                                                                                                                Hey all, We’re evaluating Zoho One + Sage Intacct and I’m trying to connect with anyone who has actually implemented the two together.Specifically, I’d love to know: -- Which functions you kept in Zoho vs. Intacct (e.g., Product Catalog, AR/AP, invoicing,
                                                                                                              • Next Page