Waterfall Overview

Overview

Waterfall gives you quick visibility into the factors contributing to changes in your pipeline. There are standard buckets that tell the story of what happened to your pipeline between the selected start time and end time.

With Waterfall, front-line managers and sales leaders can quickly determine what caused pipeline numbers to change over time. They can also determine what generated or removed pipeline and get insight into where it stands today and what led to that.

Note: Data might be different in Analyze visuals (Pulse, Waterfall, Funnel, Flow, Trend) versus data you see when you drill down into the Opportunities Module. This usually happens because in the Opportunities Module, Clari queries Salesforce and gets live data, but in Analyze, data refreshes every 15 minutes.
 

Basic Orientation

 

a. How did pipeline closing [time period] change [date range]? Select the segment of opportunities you want to analyze by their Close Date and the Date Range over which you want to analyze changes to your pipeline.


b. Scope: Leverage the scope to narrow your focus to the level of the business you're interested in analyzing.


c. Filters and Chart Settings: Add filters to narrow the segment of deals you're analyzing and select the field you care about.


d. KPIs: Key metrics featured in the graphic below.


e. Start Pipeline: Aggregates the pipeline amount at the start of the period over which you want to analyze changes to your pipeline.


f. Pipeline Change: Summarizes the changes that occurred between the Start Pipeline and End Pipeline.


g. End Pipeline: Aggregates the change from your Start Pipeline with an arrow indicator showing net increase/decrease in open pipeline amount.

Understanding Waterfall KPIs

There are four KPIs that help to highlight key insights from the waterfall.

 

c. Total Increase: aggregates all the buckets that increased the starting pipeline.

Analyzing Changes Between Start and End

The Date Range sets the boundaries for the start and end of the Waterfall. The middle of the graphic summarizes what changes occurred.


Hovering on the Start Pipeline will show the breakdown of deals included in Waterfall at the start of the Date Range.
 

Hovering over the End Pipeline will show a breakdown of deals remaining open in the pipeline at the end of the Date Range:

 

New Open: deals that were not there at the start but were at the end of the Date Range.

Idle: deals that were there at the start and are still open at the end of the Date Range.

Hovering over one of the buckets in the middle of the graph will provide the summary information and a definition of the bucket.
 

Clicking on a bucket shows you the deals in that bucket. Once you drill down into the deals in a bucket, it's important to remember that the current value of the deals will be displayed.

Historical snapshots of deals are not available in Waterfall (i.e., drilling down into the Start Pipeline will display the current value of deals, not the value of those deals at the start of the period in Waterfall).

When Deals Include Changes from Multiple Buckets

There are scenarios where a single deal may change so that it is tracked in multiple buckets within Waterfall. These deals will be included in multiple buckets to show as much detail as possible within Waterfall.

For example, you may have a deal that had its amount increase and was also won. In this scenario, the increased deal amount will increase the Amount Increased bucket and the full deal amount will add to the value of the Won bucket. This reduces the total open pipeline at the end by the deal's full value.

Notes on Won/Lost buckets

 

For the Won and Lost buckets, if opportunities undergo multiple changes in the date range, the side panel start date value and change in value may not net to 0. Known scenarios are outlined below:

 

• New → Won / Lost: These opportunities are out of scope at the start date (does not exist) and the end date (exits the pipeline). In the chart, the amount of New will be offset by the amount in Won / Lost. In the side panel for Won / Lost, the start date will exclude the value of the New opportunity and the change in value will include the ending value of the opportunity when it is Won or Lost.

• Pulled In / Pushed In / Filter In → Won / Lost: These opportunities are out of scope at the start date (does not meet the criteria but does exist) and out of scope at the end date (exits the pipeline). In the chart, the amount of Pulled in / Pushed In / Filter In will be offset by the amount of Won / Lost. In the side panel for Won / Lost, the start date will exclude the value of the Pulled In / Pushed In / Filter In opportunity and the change in value will include the ending value of those opportunities when they are Won or Lost.

• Decrease / Increase → Won / Lost: These opportunities are in scope at the start date (meets the criteria and does exist) and out of scope at the end date (exits the pipeline). In the chart, the amount of Decrease / Increase will be offset by the incremental amount added to Won / Lost. In the side panel for Won / Lost, the start date will include the start date value of the Decrease / Increase opportunities and the change in value will include the ending value of those opportunities (after the Decrease / Increase impact).

 

The tiebreaker ranking for opportunities that undergo multiple changes within a date range is shown below:

 

Examples of Deals in Multiple Buckets

 

Scenario	Buckets Where Deal is Included
Deal has the following changes by end of the Date Range. Increases in value Updated to Closed-Won	This deal will be included in the following buckets. Amount Increased Closed-Won (total deal amount)
Deal has the following changes by end of the Date Range. Decreases in value Updated to Closed-Lost	This deal will be included in the following buckets. Amount Decreased Closed-Lost (total deal amount)
Deal does not meet filter criteria at the start but is in the end. Filters applied are: Deal Stage = S2, S3, Closed-Won. Deal goes through the following changes within the Date Range. Deal starts as S1 (not part of filter criteria) Deal moves to Closed-Won (to the surprise and accolades of the broader team)	This deal will be included in the following buckets. Filtered In: when the deal moved to Closed-Won, it became a part of the filter criteria Won: deal was won within the Date Range

Waterfall Filters

Waterfall also allows you to filter on fields like forecast category, stage, and more so you can focus on relevant deals in your pipeline.

So if you have a "Manager Commit" field, for example, you can filter by and identify how much your pipeline increased or decreased because the "Manager Commit" field was changed.

For example:

If you apply a filter for Forecast Category, you can set Waterfall to only display opportunities that were in Commit (or any other Forecast Category) at the start and/or end of the selected Date Range.

In this example, that includes:

• Deals that started in Commit within the date range.

• Deals that ended in Commit within the date range—these deals get included in the Filtered In bucket because they met the filter criteria at the end of the waterfall.

Examples of More Complex Filter Scenarios

 

Scenario	How it Will Be Handled
Filters: Opp Type = Renewal, Renewal + Upsell Opportunity starts as Renewal, then is changed to New Logo	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and then aggregated within the Filtered Out bucket.
Filters: Opp Type = Renewal, Renewal + Upsell Opportunity starts as Renewal, then is changed to New Logo, then is Closed-Won	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and then aggregated in the Filtered Out bucket.
Filters: Stage = S1, S2, S3 Opportunity starts as S1, then is closed-won	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and then aggregated in the Won bucket.
Filters: Stage = S1, S2, S3 Opportunity starts as S1, then is moved to S0	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and aggregated in the Filtered Out bucket.
Filters: Stage = S1, S2, S3 Opportunity starts as S1, then is moved backwards to S0, then is Closed-lost	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and then aggregated in the Filtered Out bucket.
Filters: Forecast Category = Upside, Commit Opportunity starts as Upside, then is closed-won	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and aggregated in the Won bucket.
Filters: Forecast Category = Upside, Commit Opportunity starts as Upside, then is moved to Pipeline	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and then aggregated in the Filtered Out bucket.
Filters: Forecast Category = Upside, Commit Opportunity starts as Upside, then is moved to Pipeline, then is Closed-lost	Deal is included in the Start Pipeline and aggregated in the Lost bucket.
Filters: Stage = S1, S2, S3 Opportunity starts as S0, then is moved to S1	Deal is not included in Start Pipeline and is aggregated in the Filtered In bucket.
Filters: Stage = S1, S2, S3 Opportunity starts as S0, then is moved to S1, then is Closed-won	Deal is not included in the Start Pipeline, but moved into S1 and then Closed-Won. Therefore, the deal will appear in Filtered In & Won.
Filters: Stage = S1, S2, S3 Opportunity starts as S0, then is moved to S1, then is Closed-Lost.	Deal is not included in the Start Pipeline, but moved into S1 and then Closed-Won. Therefore, the deal will appear in Filtered In & Lost.

 

Add a Waterfall Widget to a Clari Dashboard

You can add a Waterfall Widget to one of your Clari Dashboards.

1. Go to Analyze > Waterfall. 
2. Click Pin in the top-right corner. 
3. Name your widget and click Next.
4. Select a dashboard to add it to, and click Save. 

For more info, see our step-by-step guide.
 

Other Scenarios

Here are a couple more common scenarios that don't fall into the examples shared above. 
 

Scenario	How it Will Be Handled
Deal has the following change(s) by the end of the Date Range while looking at how pipeline Last Quarter changed This Quarter: Updated to Closed-Lost in the current quarter Close Date changes from closing prior quarter to current quarter	This deal will be included in the Pulled Forward bucket. The deal won't appear in Lost since the opportunity was Closed-Lost prior to the Close Date being changed.
Deal has the following change(s) after the end of the date range while looking at how pipeline Last Quarter changed Last Quarter: Updated to Closed-Lost/Closed-Won in the current quarter. Close Date is changed to be a date last quarter.	This deal will be included in the Open bucket. The deal won't appear in Lost/Won since the opportunity was Closed-Lost/Closed-Won after the end of the quarter, which falls outside of the range even though the Close Date was updated to a date in last quarter. Tip: If you set a custom range, you can set the range to be a couple of days after the end of the quarter so these deals closed after quarter-end will appear in the categories of Lost or Won.

 

Time Machine in Waterfall

 

Time Machine in Waterfall reveals how different deals affect the Waterfall bucket changes

 

How To Use Time Machine in Waterfall

 

1. Go to Analyze > Waterfall in the top Nav.

 

2. From Waterfall, select a View (top left) or manually set the filters for the cohort of deals you want to view.

 

 

3. Hover over and click on a bucket in the Waterfall chart or click on the icon on the top right. This opens Right Panel which describes the composition of the bucket.

• The top of the right panel summarizes the bucket’s status at the start date and end date as well as the change over the date range. The Start Date and End Date pills summarize the total deal value and total deal count.
• The bottom of the right panel displays a table that breaks down the aggregate change summarized above by individual deal change. Depending on the bucket, the exact columns of the table vary to display the relevant information.

 

 

4. To drill-down, select the View in Opportunities button under the start date or end date pill. This will take you to the Inspect module as of the date selected, either the start or end date. For some buckets, like Slipped, the start date or end date will have “Not Included” in the pill. Clicking the button under these pills will take you to the deals in the table below as of that date.

 

5. In the Inspect module, the date selected will be indicated in a banner at the top of the screen and the values will reflect the historical view as of that date. The following are key functionality differences in the Inspect module when it is in Time Machine mode:

• All Opportunity field data is shown as of the date selected (Start Date or End Date)
• Editing is fully disabled, both in the main grid as well as the right panel
• The right panel only includes the Details list of fields. It does not include Activity, Relationships, or MAP. The known exception to this is if the date selected = today’s date.

 

6. Go back to Waterfall by clicking the top left button in the drill down view in Inspect.