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title: Sales Planning Basics
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version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/sales/264-0-0/sales_planning_basics.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.sales_planning_basics.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
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content_type: documentation
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description: Align sales goals with organizational growth with Sales Planning. A sales plan consists of a data source from Salesforce or other proprietary and third-party sources that you connect and includes a product hierarchy, goals, targets, and milestones.
products:
  - Sales Cloud
  - Sales Enablement
release: "264"
---
# Sales Planning Basics

Align sales goals with organizational growth with Sales Planning. A sales plan consists of a data source from Salesforce or other proprietary and third-party sources that you connect and includes a product hierarchy, goals, targets, and milestones.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available for an additional cost in: <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> Editions with Sales Planning in English only, and only if you have Web Services API enabled</td></tr></tbody></table>

1. **[Connect Data Sources to Sales Plans](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.data_sources_management_add_sources.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    Start your sales planning process with relevant data from Salesforce or from other proprietary and third-party sources that you connect to in Sales Planning.
2. **[Data Cloud Data Sources in Sales Planning](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.data_sources_management_data_cloud_sources.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    Build sales plans on Data Cloud Data Model Objects (DMOs) and Data Lake Objects (DLOs) in addition to CRM Analytics Data Pipeline datasets. Data Cloud is the foundational data platform across Salesforce, so you reuse data that your org already manages and scale beyond the license limits of Data Pipeline.
3. **[Create a Sales Plan](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.sales_planning_plans_create.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    To get started in Sales Planning, create a plan and select a data source, then specify product hierarchy, product seasonality, goals, targets, and milestones. Share the plan with other users so your team can collaborate on the planning process.
4. **[Goal Configuration in Sales Planning](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.sales_planning_goalconfig.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    Goals in Sales Planning control how Sales Planning shows target values across territory planning, quota planning, and segment views. For revenue-based metrics, Sales Planning shows targets as currency. For count-based metrics, targets display as plain numbers.
5. **[Set Up Product Hierarchy and Product Seasonality in Sales Planning](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.sales_planning_products.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    An effective sales plan depends on aligning your company’s important products with your seller strategy. In Sales Planning, set up a product hierarchy and specify seasonality for the products that your team sells. Seasonality represents the emphasis placed on a particular product during a certain time of year. For example, seasonality can increase in the last fiscal quarter. A product hierarchy also helps with Quota Planning.
6. **[Identify Goals and Set Targets in Sales Planning](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.sales_planning_goals_targets.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    Add goals to the sales plan, and specify target values for each goal. Typically, finance users set high-level guidance and then sales or sales operations personnel set specific targets for their teams.
7. **[Track Sales Planning Progress with Milestones](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.segmentation_milestones_add.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)**  
    Align teams with milestones that specify responsibilities and deadlines in Sales Planning segments. Plan owners visualize burndown charts that give insight into milestone status, expected completion dates, and upcoming and overdue tasks in each segment.