Profiles Relevant for Forecast

In the forecast profiles, you define parameters that SAP F&R uses in forecasts. Forecast-relevant profiles influence the calculation of the forecast in the F&R Processor.

Activities

Here, you can make parameter settings for the forecast calculation.

Note that some of the settings mentioned for the forecast profile are only available with the business function SCM-FRE, Replenishment and Optimization in F&R (SCM_FRE_OPTIM).

The base profile contains basic settings for the location. You make settings here for the boundaries between the selling classes and for the forecast horizon. If you have not defined a forecast horizon in the master data for the location product, the system uses the forecast horizon defined in the base profile.
Assign the base profile in the master data for the location.

On the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Forecasting and Replenishment Master Data Location Maintain Locations .

For more information about the base profile, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Base Profiles .
The forecast profile affects location product settings for the forecast.
These include settings for data cleansing (formatting the time series data), selling-class-dependent assignment of forecast methods, and settings for seasonal products.
- You can enter the following settings (among others) in the Basic Settings area:
  - How many historic FRP periods to use
  - Whether the FRP should include consumption from the current week in forecast calculation
  - Whether SAP F&R should save the forecast result for the location product including the safety amount in a time series
  - Whether SAP F&R should output the corrected consumption history so that the reasons for the corrections are made available for the display in the Time Series screen
  - Whether SAP F&R should set the calculated forecast values and DIF effects to zero for periods in which the location product is not listed
- You can enter the following settings (among others) in the Preparation area:
  - Correct Lost Consumption
    If the system calculates a day with potential lost consumption (day's closing stock = 0) within a period, it modifies the weekly consumption time series by calculating a local mean, which takes the number of days with and without stock into account within the affected single period.
  - Outlier Correction: You can define whether you want FRP to correct outliers in consumption troughs and/or consumption peaks. You can specify a general and a selling class-specific factor for consumption troughs, for example, as well as a specific number of weeks for outlier correction. You can also specify a percentage to exclude the weekly consumption values with the greatest deviations from outlier calculation.
  - Enhanced Determination of Zero Stock
    You can define whether the system should use the enhanced method of determining zero stock days when correcting the lost consumption, so that a day is marked as a zero stock day only if both the reported stock and the consumption of the day in question is zero.
- Among other settings, the Forecast Methods area lets you configure SAP F&R to determine the forecast method for the selling class (such as fast moving items) automatically.
  - In the default settings, SAP F&R uses the results of parameter optimization for forecast method Regression. You can set a flag in the forecast profile to override this default setting. Among other things, you can also configure the adaptivity, for example, and instruct the system to give weight recent consumption periods more heavily than older periods. You can enter the adaptivity manually (in the forecast profile) or have the system calculate it automatically through parameter optimization. If you only want to consider the last two consumption periods in forecast calculation, you can configure the local adaptivity parameter.
  - If you use the smoothing forecast method, you can configure the smoothing factor for historical weekly consumption time series, for example, as well as for seasonal cycles. In addition, you can configure how strongly SAP F&R should take the calculated seasonal effect into account.
- You can configure settings in the Variance Calculation area to determine how SAP F&R calculates the standard deviation (of forecast errors).
  You assign the forecast profile in the master data for the location products. To maintain location products, go to the SAP Easy Access screen and choose Forecasting and Replenishment Master Data Product Maintain Location Products
  
  For more information, see Customizing for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Forecasting Profiles
- The Forecast Method Regressionscreen area allows you to control the following settings, among others:
  - In the case of forecast models with a trend component, you can choose to dampen the trend for future forecast values by using a trend dampening factor.
  - You can choose to filter the DIFs by significance and eliminate collinear DIFs from the forecast model to improve the quality of the forecast.
  For more information, see Customizing for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Forecasting Profiles
The exception base profile relates to a location. Here you control the output of exceptions for consumption data and stock data in the Replenishment Workbench and the Product Workbench. These include:
- Zero consumption exception
- Low consumption exception
- Overstock exception
You assign the exception base profile in the master data for the location. For more information about the exception base profile, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Exception Base Profiles .
The exception profile relates to a location product. It contains settings for the output of exceptions in the Replenishment Workbench and the Product Workbench after running the F&R Processor. These include:
- New DIFs
- Difference between the actual sales figures and the forecast sales figures for the current week
- General outliers for historical sales
- Exceptions for the start and end of a listing period
You assign the exception profile in the master data for the location product. For more information about the exception profile, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Exception Profiles .
The service level profile contains settings for different service levels.
You assign the service level profile in the master data for location products. For more information, see Service Level Profile.
In the process control profile, you determine whether you want to define the forecast frequency for locations or for location products. In addition, you determine for parameter optimization whether you wish to define the frequency profile for locations or for location products.
You assign the process control profile to the location data in Administration. In start administration, go to the SAP Easy Access screen and choose Forecasting and Replenishment Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Administration .

For more information about the process control profile, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Process Control Profiles .
The forecast frequency profile contains settings for the frequency of the forecast calculation.
You assign the forecast frequency profile in the process control profile or in the master data for location products. For more information, see Forecast Frequency.

You can define the forecast frequency dependent on the following objects:
- ABC classification of the location product
- Selling class of the location product
- Individual location products (definition of assignment level)
- Whole location
For more information about the forecast frequency profile, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Forecasting and Replenishment under Forecasting and Replenishment Processor Maintain Forecast Frequency Profiles .