Forecasting Data + Custom Data + Workbench: Build the Forecast View You've Been Asking RevOps For
Most forecast view requests start the same way: “Hey RevOps, can you build me a view that shows…”
And then one of two things happens. Either RevOps builds it in a report (which won’t update the way a forecast updates), or RevOps says “we’ll see what we can do” and the request dies in a backlog.
Three things, combined, make that ticket unnecessary: live Salesforce forecasting data, Custom Data Manager, and Workbench. One gives you the forecast. One gives you the extra numbers you want next to it. One gives you the math and the layout. Load once. Build once. Every manager gets the view, every week, on live data.
Here’s how that actually plays out.
The three halves
Salesforce forecasting data is the backbone. Closed, Commit, Best Case, Pipeline, Quota — rolled up to your forecasting hierarchy, by period, by forecast type. This is the number the forecast conversation is actually about. It moves in real time as the pipeline moves. Without it, nothing else matters.
Custom Data Manager holds the other inputs. Stretch goals. Prior-year actuals. Budget plan. New-logo target. Ramp-adjusted quota. Any numeric field you want available at the same rep–period–forecast-type grain as the forecast itself, so it can sit next to it and participate in the same math.
Workbench is the view builder. Columns, formulas, time-offsets, period comparisons, rollups. You decide what shows up, in what order, with what math — pulling from both the live forecasting data and your custom fields as equal citizens.
The trick is that Workbench doesn’t care where the column came from. Forecast, Quota, Stretch, Plan, Prior Year — they’re all just columns you can display, compare, or combine in a formula. Once those three are wired together, the forecast view is a composition problem, not an engineering problem.
A few views this unlocks
”Are we above stretch?”
Load stretch goals as Custom Data. In Workbench, build a view with columns: Rep, Quota, Stretch, Forecast, and a formula column Forecast - Stretch called “Gap to Stretch.”
That’s it. Every rep, every period, every forecast type. The “who’s tracking above their stretch commitment” conversation now has a dedicated view instead of a spreadsheet.
”How are we pacing versus last year?”
Load previous-year actuals as Custom Data. In Workbench, build a view with Current Quarter Closed, Prior Year Same Quarter Closed, and a formula column (Closed / PriorYearActuals) - 1 rendered as a percentage. “Pacing vs. LY.”
Now the question “are we ahead of last year?” is a column, not a debate. The finance team stops Slacking you for the number.
”What’s the gap between sales and plan?”
Load finance’s plan as Custom Data. Build a Workbench view with Forecast, Plan, and a formula column Forecast - Plan (“Gap to Plan”). Make it conditional: red when negative, green when positive.
Forecast calls now start with the number everyone in the room is actually measured against — sales commit and finance plan, side by side.
”How are new hires ramping?”
Load a ramp-adjusted quota per rep per period as Custom Data (different from their full quota). Build a Workbench view that shows Full Quota, Ramped Quota, Closed, and Closed / RampedQuota as Ramped Attainment.
A rep who started two months ago now shows up honestly in the attainment view. No more “technically at 12% but they only started in February” caveats on every slide.
”Commit coverage against stretch, not quota”
Build a Workbench view with Stretch, Pipeline, and a formula column Pipeline / Stretch — “Stretch Coverage.” Now you can see which teams have enough pipeline to support the stretch number, not just quota.
This is the kind of question that used to require a custom report build. It’s now a view that takes 90 seconds to assemble.
Why this matters
Salesforce forecasting out of the box is essentially a fixed view. You get the live forecast data — categories (Closed, Commit, Best Case, Pipeline) and quota — but you can’t reshape it. Everything else leadership actually asks about requires either a report that doesn’t update live or a spreadsheet that everyone knows is stale.
The three-way combination flips that. The forecast data is already live in Salesforce — that’s the foundation. The extra inputs are flexible (load whatever numeric data you need through Custom Data Manager). The outputs are flexible (build whatever view your managers want through Workbench). All three run together on live Salesforce data, inside the forecast surface.
The practical effect: the “RevOps, can you build me a view…” ticket queue shrinks. The people who ask for the view are usually the people who can now build it. Five minutes of Workbench column-picking beats a two-week report-request cycle.
The engineering-ish part (that isn’t actually engineering)
Workbench view formulas support the usual arithmetic — plus, minus, multiply, divide, percentages — and time-offset fields like “30 days ago” or “same period last year.” They don’t require Apex, Flow, or a developer.
If you can write a formula in Excel, you can write one in Workbench. Forecast - Plan is a formula. So is Pipeline / Quota. So is (Closed - PriorYearClosed) / PriorYearClosed as a year-over-year growth percentage. Custom Data fields show up in the formula picker the same way standard fields do.
That’s the design principle that makes this work: the people closest to the question — managers, directors, RevOps analysts — can build the view themselves, with numbers they or finance or leadership loaded, without a ticket.
The rhythm teams settle into
After a few weeks with Custom Data + Workbench, most teams land on something like this:
- A small handful of custom fields — usually 3–5. Stretch, Prior Year, Plan, New Logo Target. Sometimes a ramp-adjusted quota.
- A per-role library of saved views — CRO’s weekly roll-up, RVP’s team view, AE’s own view. Each one composed from the same underlying fields.
- Scenario planning that means something — because Scenarios can now reference the full field set too. “What if every rep hits ramped stretch?” becomes a scenario you run in 30 seconds.
- An end to the report backlog — or at least a serious dent in it. The repeat questions get views. The one-off questions get Oonu answers. RevOps gets their time back.
Getting started
The sequence is always the same:
- Pick one number you wish were in your forecast view that isn’t. Stretch is the classic starting point.
- Add it as a Custom Data field. Load it with the guided import (no Data Loader).
- Open Workbench. Add the field as a column. Build a formula against it if you want.
- Save the view. Share it with the people who’ve been asking for it.
That’s the whole loop. Each cycle takes maybe an hour. After three or four of them, your forecast surface looks nothing like the out-of-the-box Salesforce view — and looks exactly like the one your team actually uses.
See what your forecast view looks like once Custom Data and Workbench are wired together. Schedule a demo and we’ll build one with your data on screen.
