Running a Predictive Time Series Forecast

Using data from a planning model, you can run a time series forecast on a single cell in a table.

Prerequisites

You will need planning rights and a planning license to run a predictive time series forecast.

Procedure

  1. Open or create a new story, and add a table based on a planning model to a story page.
    • In the Builder panel, add a date dimension if none is currently included as a Column.
  2. Select a single cell that can be edited. From the story toolbar, select the (Forecast) icon.

    The Create Predictive Forecast dialog is displayed.

  3. Under Predictive Forecast Settings, specify the period you want to forecast.

    Select an option under Granularity to specify the time granularity for the predictive forecast. Use the Predict From field to specify the starting point for the predictive forecast calculation. Under Predict To, specify a time period to end the calculation.

    Note
    By default, the lowest Granularity is Month. For fiscal years, Period is the lowest Granularity.
  4. Under Advanced Options, specify options on how you want to run the predictive forecast.
    1. Under Algorithm, select one of the following options to create the forecast:
      • Automatic Forecast
      • Linear Regression
      • Triple Exponential Smoothing
    2. If you do not want to have any negative values included in your results, under Output Values select Positive Only.
    3. Under Use Data From, specify on what historical data you want to run the algorithm.
    4. Select which Version to use for the forecast input data.
      By default the Actual version is used.
  5. When you are ready to run the predictive forecast, select Preview.

    The time series forecast is displayed in the Preview Predictive Forecast dialog. The preview contains the past actual values together with predicted values displayed as a graph and a table row. Upper and lower limits for the confidence interval are also provided for the graph. The table rows contain the predicted values that will be added to the table. A dashed line (originating from the first point of the forecast) represents the predictive model applied to past periods.

    Note
    You can preview the predicted values for booked cells after running a time series forecast.

    For cells containing values, the cell's existing weighting is respected. For unbooked cells, the weighting of the reference period is used.

  6. To populate the table with the forecasted values, select OK.

    A message indicates that the forecasted values were added to the table.

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