With the forecast, you can estimate the future progression of values in a time series on the basis of past history. You do this either online or in the background.

In standard SOP, you can forecast the sales quantities of a product group or material. The system bases the forecast on the historical consumption of materials. It then aggregates these results to the product group level. Consumption data includes every kind of goods issue, even goods that have been written off as scrap.

In flexible planning, you can forecast any key figure that you want, provided that it has been defined for forecasting in Customizing (in Set parameters for info structures and key figures). The system bases the forecast on the actual values of this key figure. In level-by-level planning, you can also base the forecast on historical consumption data. In this case, the information structure must contain the characteristics "material" and "plant," and you must set the Consumpn. indicator in the forecast profile.

In level-by-level planning, you can base the forecast on the consumption quantities of a "reference material." This is useful if you do not have any historical values for a material; for example, because it is new. You define the reference material in the material master record.

The historical data is automatically aggregated to the current planning level before the forecast is carried out. If you run the forecast online, this is the planning level on which you are working in the planning table. If you run the forecast in the background, this is the planning level you define in the job variant.