Leverage Exports to Integrate Clari's Forecasting with External Tools

Overview 

Clari provides the ability to export all historical forecasting data directly from the product to be leveraged in external analysis.

For example, customers use Clari's forecasting integration export to:
 

• Bring data into Tableau to analyze historical rep and manager forecasting patterns to identify the best and worst forecasters
• Examine forecasting trend data to provide an additional early-quarter triangulation point on where the company is likely to land based on early calls from AVPs and execs
• Do fine-grained analysis on coverage ratios to proactively take action on significant gaps (i.e. a high quota and low available pipeline)

 

Generating the Integration Export

There are two main ways that customers generate the integration export:

1. Manually through the Clari interface, or
2. Automatically through a scheduled script (leveraging an automation tool like Selenium)

 

This article describes how to leverage Clari's forecasting integration export in order to bring forecasting data out of Clari and into external tools (such as a business intelligence application or enterprise data warehouse).

A related topic discusses how to export more "aggregated" data from Clari Pulse, if the level of granularity offered by the forecasting integration export is too detailed. 
 

Manual Integration Exports

To obtain your forecasting export from the forecasting module:

 

Click Actions (top right) > Export

Selenium-driven Integration Exports

To automate Clari exports, you must construct a Clari “export URL” for scripting purposes.  Once you have the URL(s) you need, you can use it with something like Selenium so you can run it on a schedule.
 

Prerequisites

• Forecasting data is currently exportable via the Forecasting UI in the web product.  In order to export data, you must be logged in as a user who has access to the Forecasting module, and either opted in directly as a MGR (forecast manager with reports) / OWNER (forecast owner with no reports), or as a VIEWER of another user's forecast.
• This holds true for exporting data in an automated fashion from the browser - you must be logged in as a user with rights to view the forecast that you want to export.

Standard Export Instructions

1.    Ensure that you have logged into Clari in a browser tab that has access to the forecast you wish to export data from
2.    In a separate tab, paste a URL in the following form:

https://gateway.clari.com/api/v2core/fcw/export/fid/[FORECAST_ID]?exportType=[TYPE]&quarter=[QUARTER]&asyncExport=false&rt=csvhttps://gateway.clari.com/api/v2core/fcw/export/fid/[FORECAST_ID]?exportType=[TYPE]&quarter=[QUARTER]&asyncExport=false&rt=csv&scopeId=[USER_ID]
 

Where

• [FORECAST_ID] - ID of the forecast tab you wish to export data from; can be found in the URL when viewing that tab in the UI (in the below example, the ID is deal_owner)
• [TYPE] - Can be set to either SIMPLE, DETAILED, or FULL
  [QUARTER] - Year and quarter in the form of YYYY_QX, e.g. 2017_Q3
• [USER_ID] - specify which user's level to begin the export at using their numerical user ID. In many cases, this should be the User ID for the user at the highest level of the hierarchy that is opted into Forecasting.

 

Doing so will generate the CSV export for the specified forecast for the specified quarter.
 

Levels Export Instructions

1.    Ensure that you have logged into Clari in a browser tab that has access to the forecast you wish to export data from
2.    In a separate tab, paste a URL in the following form:

https://gateway.clari.com/api/v2core/fcw/export/fid/[FORECAST_ID]/levels?forecastFields=[FIELDS_LIST]&forecastUserId=[FORECAST_USER]&asyncExport=false&rt=csv
 

• [FORECAST_ID] - ID of the forecast tab you wish to export data from; can be found in the URL when viewing that tab in the UI (in the below example, the ID is deal_owner)
• [FORECAST_FIELDS] - Comma separated list of field ID's
• [FORECAST_USER] - Top level user that you want to run the levels report for
• OPTIONAL: You can add quarter=YYYY_QX if you want to run the report for a quarter other than the current quarter
• DEBUG: You can add includeUsers=true if you want a detailed report on which users (by ID) are attributed to which levels

What is contained in the integration export?

The integration export contains the following columns in CSV format:
 

• User: The user name of the forecasting user
• Email: The email address of the forecasting user
• CRM User ID: The internal CRM user ID of the forecasting user
• Role: The role of the user in the forecasting hierarchy
• Parent Role: The parent role of the user in the forecasting hierarchy
• Timeframe: The timeframe of the field. This can be a quarter ("Q1", etc.), month, or week
• Field: The forecasting field name, based on the organization's forecasting template
• Week: The week in the forecasting period (the forecast value is what the user had in their forecast "as of" this week)
• Start Day: The start day of the forecasting period (to make it easier for consumption and reporting)
• End Day: The end day of the forecasting period (to make it easier for consumption and reporting)
• Data Type: The data type of the value (for example, "Forecast Update" is an end-user forecast update)
• Data Value: Whether the data value was actually updated by an end-user during the time period

 

Read this article to learn how to interpret the export.