Distribute Targets and Manage Invalid Targets

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Distribute account manager targets by account.
• Distribute account manager targets by product.
• Distribute account manager targets by time period.
• Manage invalid targets for your team members.

Follow Along with Trail Together

Want to follow along with an expert as you work through this step? Take a look at this video, part of the Trail Together series.

(This clip starts at the 14:45 minute mark, in case you want to rewind and watch the beginning of the step again.)

Distribute Targets by Accounts and Products

Each of Bill’s direct reports supervise a team of account managers, who in turn handle multiple key accounts. Having a target isn’t enough for Sam, Zac, or Elliott because when they assign the targets further to their direct reports they base their decisions on which products and accounts to focus on. 

While assigning targets, it’s important that Bill also specifies which key accounts to focus on during the year for revenue generation. He can also go a level deeper and specify the products from which he expects to generate the majority of revenue. His direct reports can then follow suit and do the same for their team members.

Bill makes his decisions based on the following considerations.

• Product-based distribution: This decision is dependent on factors like new product introduction, market growth of certain product segments, customer demands, and so on.
• Account-based distribution: This decision may be taken due to a slump in revenue over the last few quarters, a change in the priority of a client, or to establish stronger footholds in certain markets and geographies.

Bill conducts a meeting with his direct reports to understand how to best divide the targets. They come up with these key requirements.

• Acme Partner continues to be an important account for Rayler Parts, and about 25% of the revenue target must be fulfilled from this account.
• Compactor 8000 is a new product and must be promoted by account managers to distributors, and around 5% of the revenue target can be achieved from this product.

Bill first distributes Elliott’s target assignment for the Acme Partner account. Here are the steps he takes.

1. Open the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record that's assigned to Elliott Drake.
2. Go to the Related tab.
3. Click View Distribution on the Account Manager Target Distribution related list.
4. In the Account tab of the Distribute target assignment window, click Add Row.
5. Search for and select Acme Partner. Bill wants to distribute the target assignment by this account.
6. Add a target percentage of 25% as discussed.
   

Notice how Manufacturing Cloud populates the Target Currency Value field automatically. 

6. Click Save.

Bill now needs to distribute his three team members’ target assignments by product, by allocating 5% of their individual targets to Compactor 8000.

1. Open the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record that's assigned to Sam Chloe.
2. Go to the Related tab.
3. Click View Distribution on the Account Manager Target Distribution related list.
4. In the Product tab of the Distribute target assignment window, click Add Row.
5. For Name, search for and select Compactor 8000. Bill wants to distribute the target by this product.
6. For Price Book, Cindy already set up the Acme Price Book as the default. That’s what Bill wants to use, but he can replace it with another price book if he needs to.
7. When a product is in the selected price book, Manufacturing Cloud populates the list price automatically. If it’s not in the selected price book, you need to enter the list price manually.
8. Next, enter 5 for Target Percentage. This is the percentage of the target assignment value.
   

Manufacturing Cloud calculates the target value by dividing the target currency value by the list price.

1. Click Save.
2. Bill repeats steps 1–8 for his other team members, Zac and Elliott.

Distribute Targets by Time Period

While distributing targets based on accounts and products, Bill notices something. He can also distribute account manager targets by time period. Cindy set up time periods earlier when she defined the fiscal year for Rayler Parts in Setup. She also set up the distribution frequency as Monthly for targets.

Bill can distribute targets by time period in two ways.

• He can distribute an overall target assignment. In this case, Manufacturing Cloud distributes the target equally across all 12 months in FY23. Bill can change the values for each month if necessary.
• He can distribute a target assignment after he has already distributed it by account or product. This provides a whole new level of granularity because Manufacturing Cloud distributes this granular target assignment across 12 months. Bill can change the values for each month.

Overall Target Distribution by Period

Bill first distributes Elliott’s overall target assignment by time period. Here’s how he does it.

1. Go to the Assigned by Me list view, and select the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record with target value 100,000.
2. On the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record, click the Assignments tab.
3. In the Distribute By column of your team assignments, click Period on Elliott’s row.
   Bill can see that the target assignment value is distributed equally across all 12 months. He decides to reduce the target for the months of February, March, and April knowing that Elliott’s team will be focused on a different project for those months.
4. Change the Target Currency Value for February, March, and April to $2,000.
5. Click Save.
   

Granular Target Distribution by Period

Now Bill wants to distribute Sam and Zac’s product-based targets by time period. Here’s how he does it.

1. Go to the Assigned by Me list view, and select the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record with target value 100,000.
2. On the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record, click the Assignments tab.
3. In the Distribute By column, click Account and Product in Sam’s row.
4. In the Product tab, click Distribute by Period in the Compactor 8000 row.
5. Reduce the assignment for September, October, November, and December by changing the Target Currency Value to $120.
6. Click Save.
   
7. Click Save again on the Distribute target assignment modal.
8. Bill repeats steps 2–7 for Zac Mehmood.

Now, all changes must be propagated to the assignments to ensure that they reflect accurately for the entire chain of direct reports under Bill.

1. In the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record, go back to the Assignments tab.
2. Click Propagate to Assignments and then Propagate.

Bill receives an in-app notification when the assignment values are updated; he clicks the notifications icon to see the details. 

The team members who have updated assignment values also receive an in-app notification that their target values have changed. This ensures that Zac, Sam, and Elliott can also start making changes for their direct reports.

Manage Target Updates Across Your Hierarchy

With the current year coming to an end, the sales team at Rayler Parts is overjoyed because they have a new system in place for the next fiscal year to measure and gauge target attainment. 

Another change occurs at the end of the year. Sam informs Bill that she found an exciting career opportunity that she couldn’t pass up. Before leaving the company, she reminds Bill that all her targets for FY23 must be transferred to the person who takes her place.

Bill contacts Cindy to see if there’s an easy way to do this. Yup, Manufacturing Cloud comes with a ready solution.

Targets can become invalid for various reasons—a team member leaves the organization, the manager hierarchy changes, and so on. For this personnel change, Cindy can create a User record for Sam’s replacement, and associate Bill as the manager in Setup. After that Bill can easily change targets and transfer records from Sam to the new direct reports.

Bill soon finds a capable new sales manager! Priya Krishnan comes with a lot of experience and is excited to contribute to Rayler Parts for the upcoming fiscal year.

Cindy creates Priya as a user and deactivates Sam. Bill can now see that Sam’s targets are invalid for both the quantity and revenue records. It’s time for him to reassign the targets to Priya. 

1. On the FY23 Total Revenue Goal record, Bill clicks the Assignments tab.
2. In the Invalid Team Assignments section, he clicks for an invalid assignment and selects Reassign to Team Member.
3. He enters Priya’s name and clicks Save. You can reassign an invalid assignment only to team members who don’t have an existing assignment. A team member can have only one assignment for an account manager target.

Besides Reassign to Team Member, Manufacturing Cloud gives you a few other options for your invalid assignments. 

You can move an invalid assignment to the Team Assignments section of the account manager target by selecting Move to Team Assignments in the Invalid Assignment dropdown. The app allows you to move the invalid assignment only if that team member doesn’t have an existing assignment. In addition, the measure and fiscal year of the invalid assignment must match the measure and fiscal year of the account manager target.

You can change the owner of the invalid assignment by clicking Change Owner and entering the user’s name. You can change ownership only to users who are in your organizational hierarchy.

Finally, you can delete the invalid assignment. Simply click Delete Assignment from the invalid assignments dropdown.

Bill’s work is complete and his team is ready to knock the sales out of the park this year!

Sum It Up

In this module, you saw how Bill was able to bring about an operational change in Rayler Parts by introducing a new way to set and measure sales targets. With Account Manager Targets in Manufacturing Cloud, Bill and his team were able to set transparent and clearly defined targets for all account managers across the sales hierarchy. They were able to account for granular details like accounts, products, and time periods. Bill was also able to handle team changes by reassigning invalid targets. 

Now that you’ve followed Bill on his journey, consider how you can implement Account Manager Targets with Manufacturing Cloud for your specific business requirements.

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Distribute Targets by Account and Product
• Salesforce Help: Manage Invalid Team Assignments