In this part of the tutorial you create a forecast based on actuals.
Before you begin
This tutorial is meant to be followed in sequential order. Each part assumes that the previous
part was completed.
Note: This part of the tutorial creates and saves forecast data. Unlike the preview you created in
Forecasting tutorial: previewing results, when you click
Forecast (as
opposed to
Preview), you modify the data on your
Planning Analytics database.
Procedure
- Configure the same Exploration view of the Tutorial_<your
initials> cube as in the previous section:
- Year on the columns
- Members on the rows
- Version on the context area, with the Actual member displayed
- Select Member1, Member2 and
Member3 on the row dimension.
- Click the Forecast icon
on the Exploration toolbar.
- Set the Forecast start period to 2014.
- Set the Forecast end period to 2019.
- Enable the Save statistical details as comments
option.
- Click the Advanced tab on the Forecast
panel.
- Scroll down to the section titled Where do you want to save the predicted
values? and configure the section as shown. Remember, the Version dimension name and the
Version hierarchy name are appended with your initials.
- Click Forecast.
When the forecast is done, an informational message indicates that the AI driven forecast
completed successfully.
The data in the cube refreshes automatically when the forecast is complete, but the results are
not immediately visible in the view. This is because the forecast is calculated using Actual data
values, but the forecast values are saved to the Forecast member.
- Click the Version dimension tile on the context are of the view
and then select the Forecast member.
You can see that forecast
values were written and saved to the cube for the selected row members and the years 2014 -
2019.
The
Result
summary box and the
Details link on the Forecast panel display
information about the predictive strength of each time series in the forecast. In this case, two of
the time series have a High prediction strength, while the other has a Low prediction
strength.
Click Details to see more
information about the prediction strength of each time series.
Because you enabled the
Save statistical details as comments when you configured the forecast, you
can also view statistical details for the forecast directly in the Exploration view. The first cell
in a forecast time series displays a blue triangle as an indicator that comments or statistical
details are saved with the cell.
- Right-click the cell in the forecast with the comment indicator, then click
Comments to see the statistical details for the forecast on the associated
row member.
- Click Close to dismiss the
comments.
- Click Save on the Exploration toolbar.
- Enter Forecast_tutorial_<your initials> as the view
name.
- Click the Shared tab to save the Exploration view to the Planning Analytics database Shared folder. When a
view with forecast data is saved to the Shared folder or as a public view on the Planning Analytics database, other analysts can
explore the forecast you create.
- Click Save.