It can be difficult to conceptualize the trajectory of an Account financially. Reporting like this is generally done at a company level, but lack of data points can muddy the waters of a specific account.

I developed a way in Salesforce to know whether an Account is trending Positive, Neutral or Negative updated daily.

There were/are two contributing factors in the build:

• Analysis – evaluated historical data periods and compared to the actual to determine likeliness to transact
• Flow (scheduled) – Sets the Account Trend value

Analysis

In this example, historical Orders were evaluated in 90 day periods and the previous 8 were compared to the most recent 90 day historical period to confirm accuracy.

The trend value (Positive, Neutral, Negative) assignment is based on the percentage likeliness of the next (future) period having an invoiced Order. This was proven through historic data column 1 below showing the count of all periods with an invoiced Order and the 5th column showing 2nd/Grand Total, the likeliness to transact in the next period.

Flow (Scheduled)

The flow loops through every related invoiced Order and if at least one Order exists in a period that period was given a “1” value. At the end of the looping, all the periods are summed. That number determines the Account Trend value based on the analysis above.

This flow could be set to run daily, weekly or monthly, but the best results would come with daily overnight.