Illustrative model with generic Lightning-style styling, not the real product interface. The reps, managers, quotas and deals are fictional, and no real systems, data or vendor APIs are involved. Forecast categories are assigned by hand in this model.
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Salesforce Forecasting: roll-up what-if

Every Monday a sales VP reads Commit, Best Case and Pipeline. Select a rep or a manager in the forecast grid, open a deal, then drop it from the quarter or pull it in, and trace which columns move for the rep, the manager and the total.

ForecastsQ4 forecast, VP view

Forecast grid

Opportunities

Closed won deals sit in the Closed column and are left out of this list.

In a real environment

Data sources
  • Opportunity Amount, Close Date and Forecast Category. Stages map to a forecast category, and owners can override it on their own deals.
  • The forecast hierarchy, built from the user role hierarchy, or from the territory hierarchy if territory forecasts are enabled.
  • Quotas, defined in Setup or loaded from an external source. The ForecastingQuota object exposes them to the API.
  • ForecastingItem, a read-only object with rolled-up forecast amounts, and ForecastingAdjustment for manager adjustments.
Limits and prerequisites
  • Collaborative Forecasts turned on, forecast types activated and users given access. Check the editions listed on the help page.
  • A decision on the rollup method. The help pages disagree on which one is the default, so confirm in the target org. Switching methods deletes adjustments for active forecast types.
  • Adjustments change forecast amounts only, not the underlying opportunities, and they do not update on their own when a deal changes category.
  • A user can open forecasts for people below them in the hierarchy, not above. Confirm access rules per role in the target org.
How it would be validated
  • Reconcile each grid total with an Opportunity report or a SOQL aggregate grouped by owner and Forecast Category for the same period.
  • Compare ForecastingItem amounts with the sum of the same opportunities, per forecast type and owner.
  • Test with one sandbox user per hierarchy level to confirm who sees which rows.
  • Capture a forecast submission each Monday and compare week over week, so changes are traceable.

Standard Salesforce behavior on this screen: a forecast grid with a rollup per owner and manager, a choice of single category or cumulative columns, and an opportunity list for the selected forecast value. Illustrative parts: the scenario actions that drop or pull in a deal, the trace panel, the highlights strip and the SOQL text, which is a sketch to adapt and test in a sandbox. In a real org, dropping a deal means editing its Close Date or Stage, and the forecasts page offers quick actions to edit opportunities.

What this demo does not claim: it applies no probability weights, predicts no close dates and measures no forecast accuracy. It leaves out manager adjustments and judgments, territory forecasts, multiple currencies and opportunity splits. Every figure here is a plain sum of fictional deal amounts.

References: Rollup methods for pipeline forecasts, Select a rollup method, Opportunity details in pipeline forecasts, View other users' forecasts, Stage to forecast category mappings, Make adjustments to pipeline forecasts, Set up forecast quotas, SOQL date literals, SOQL aggregate functions, ForecastingItem, ForecastingQuota, ForecastingAdjustment. Check current vendor documentation before relying on any figure.

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