Salesforce Forecast Category

In Salesforce, each value of Opportunity Stage is mapped to Type, Probability and Forecast Category. Changing the Stage of in Opportunity page layout will automatically change the Probability value and Forecast Category, although users can manually overwrite the default value of Probability and Forecast Category, if the fields are made available in the Opportunity page layout.

We can customize Forecast Category value from Forecast Category field in Opportunity object, but not the Status Category.

From the above screenshot, Forecast Category value has been modified from Best Case to Best Case OK, but the Status Category will remain as Best Case. There are 5 Forecast Category and we cannot add/delete it, although you can skip to use in from Stage assignment:

 - Pipeline

 - Best Case
 - Commit
 - Closed
 - Omitted


Customizable Forecast
When you click the Forecasts tab, you will find the 5 Forecast Category:
 - Quota
 - Closed
 - Commit
 - Best Case
 - Pipeline

The Forecast Category on the Opportunity record does NOT map directly on a one-to-one basis to the one on the Forecast tab. The amount in Closed, Commit, Best Case, Pipeline is NOT total from the same Forecast Category in  Opportunity Forecast Category. Click the Forecasts tab and notice that your forecast amounts are listed in different categories.

Forecasting Category value calculation:
Closed includes amounts for closed/won opportunities.
  Status Category = Closed
Commit includes amounts you are confident about closing and closed/won opportunity amounts.
  Status Category = Closed + Commit
Best Case includes amounts you are likely to close, closed/won opportunity amounts, and amounts in the Commit category.
  Status Category = Closed + Commit + Best Case
Pipeline includes amounts from all open opportunities.
  Status Category = Commit + Best Case + Pipeline

Sample of source data from Opportunity and relation with Forecast Category (bottom image):

Collaborative Forecast
This is the newer version of Forecast offer by Salesforce out of the box, you can have either Customize-able forecast or Collaborative Forecast in an org, not both.

When you click the Forecasts tab, you will find the 5 Forecast Category:
 - Quota (only when "Show quotas" are enabled from Forecast setting)
 - Closed
 - Commit
 - Best Case
 - Pipeline

cumulative forecast rollups are not enabled for this screenshot.

If you see above screenshot, Best Case is shown as Upside, this is changed in Forecast Category value.

If we enable cumulative forecast rollups, we can't change the header:

cumulative forecast rollups are enabled for this screenshot.

Here is the description for each category - we can't change the rollup setup:

Last update: 10 February 2018


Reference: Working with Forecast Categories (Customize-able Forecast)