Demand plan
After the forecast is generated, you can review the forecast values on the Demand Plan tab. The Enterprise demand plan is a single workbook that serves as a collaborative platform to work together. It provides a centralized location for you to consolidate and synchronize the forecasting effort.
The Demand Plan table displays the following information:
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Forecasted Demand – Displays the system generated forecast and includes the following three values:
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Lower Bound – Forecast prediction that is typically higher than the actual demand around 90 percent of the time.
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Median Demand – Forecast prediction that is typically higher than the actual demand 50 percent of the time (central estimate).
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Upper Bound – Forecast prediction that is typically higher than the actual demand 10 percent of the time.
Note
Lower and Upper Bound information is only displayed when a product_id is selected. Median Demand is displayed at both aggregate level and when a single product id is selected.
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Demand Plan – Median Demand is replicated in this row to allow for overrides.
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Actual Demand – Displays demand history for the current and prior years.
When comparing historical data on a weekly basis, Demand Planning will reference the closest Monday in the previous year. This is because Demand Planning considers Monday as the starting day of the week. Due to variations between years and leap years, the corresponding week in the previous year might not have the exact same date. For example, to compare if historical sales data for the week of 6/3/2023 is available, which is a Monday, Demand Planning will reference the week with the closest Monday in the previous year, which is 7/2/2022.
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Prior Forecast Versions – The last published demand plan displays. This will be blank during the first forecast creation because no history is available.
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Lifecycle and Events – Displays the products in the demand plan that are New Product Introductions (NPI) or products that are nearing End of Life (EoL). When you hover over the NPI or EoL icons, when more than one product is selected, you can view the number of products and the list of products. When only one product is selected, you can view the product metadata. , product available day in case of NPI, discontinue day in case of EoL, and forecast start and stop date.
Note
You will only see the number of products that are new or nearing EoL listed when the product category is set to all or when a higher level in product hierarchy is selected.
You can use the Graph toggle button to hide or show the graph view. You can hide or show the specific value by choosing the eye icon. When you filter by products, you can hover over the i help icon to view the product description, unit of measure (UoM), product available date, and discontinue date.
Viewing the forecast
To view the forecast, complete the following steps:
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On the Enterprise demand plan page, you can see the timestamp of the forecast generated. If the Enterprise demand plan is in active state, you can use the filters and make adjustments.
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On the Enterprise demand plan page, under All, choose Change category/product to change the generated forecast view. By default, the forecast displayed represents the total forecast demand for all products within the defined scope or time horizon.
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On the Select Category/Product page, you can select the product from the list or use the search box to search for a particular product by Product ID or Description.
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Choose Apply. You can now view the filtered forecast for the selected product or category.
Note
If you had chosen optional hierarchies during forecast configuration, the summary box will display the count of site, customer, and channel the selected product is sold.
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Under Refine your search, if you chose optional hierarchies during forecast configuration, you can filter for Site, Channel, or Customer to further refine your forecast. For example, if you chose Site and Channel hierarchy during forecast configuration, the filters for Site and Channel will be available on the Demand Plan page.
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In the Time interval dropdown list, select the time interval to view the forecast. You can use this filter to adjust the time hierarchy and view the forecast in both table and graph form. The lowest value corresponds to the forecast granularity time interval setting. For example, if the time interval is Weekly, you can view the forecast at Weekly, Monthly and Yearly.
You can also use the Viewing window start and Viewing window end to narrow down the period that you want to view in the forecast, both in table and graph view. You can view the historical sales for 28 days, 52 weeks, 48 months, and 10 years.
Time interval example 1
Demand Plan is generated at daily time-intervals per configuration. You can view the Demand Plan at weekly time interval by selecting the option on the Time Interval filter on the Demand Plan page. The system will aggregate values into weeks with Monday as the starting day of the week.
You can also view the demand plan in monthly time interval by using the Time Interval filter and selecting the monthly option. System will aggregate values into Gregorian calendar month with start day as 1, because demand plan is available at daily granularity.
Time interval example 2
Demand plan is generated at weekly time-interval per configuration. You can view the Demand plan at monthly time interval by selecting the Time Interval filter. The time boundaries for month will not be strict Gregorian calendar month.
Adding an override
This section describes how to manually edit the forecast to override the projected demand.
Note
Manual forecast overrides from one planning cycle are automatically saved and reapplied on the next planning cycle.
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Under Demand Plan, you can add overrides on the graph by moving the dot to the desired value or update the values directly on the Demand Plan row in the table.
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On the Edit Quantity page, under Change, select if you want to increase, decrease, or fixed amount the demand.
Choose Bulk edit to bulk edit the forecast and add an override.
The Edit your forecast page appears.
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Under Change, select the dropdown to increase or decrease the demand, or enter a value.
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Under Reason Code, select from one of the options between Promotion, Holiday, Seasonal, New Product, Product Rampdown or Others. The reason code is mandatory to successfully process the override. It is optional to add more descriptive notes to a forecast override.
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Choose Save and Update.
When you create an override, the impact can be viewed throughout the relevant levels of hierarchies. You can create many overrides but only the last override will be considered. After an override is created, a clock icon appears under Demand Plan. When you choose the clock icon, you can view the most recent change in the planning cycle. Choose View more changes to view past updates.
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To make multiple overrides at the same time, from the Edit Quantity, choose Go to bulk editing. You can also choose Bulk Edit against Demand Plan.
Note
You can bulk edit only from the table.
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On the Edit your forecast page, you can select all check boxes or a check box for each time period that you want to update, and then enter the updates.
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Choose Save and Update.
The Forecasted Demand is updated.
Exporting data plan files
You can export Demand Plan, Forecast Demand, Prior Forecast Versions, and Actual Demand History from Demand Planning as individual .csv files.
Note
The exported .csv file will contain the entire demand plan, despite which filters were active on the Demand Planning page at the time of export.
To export the data plan, complete the following steps:
On the Enterprise demand plan page, select the vertical ellipsis.
Choose Export Data Plan.
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On the Export page, select the required data you would like to download.
Choose Export.
The file is downloaded on your local computer.
Importing forecast overrides
You can use the import forecast overrides option to import the forecast overrides using a .csv file.
To upload the forecast overrides through a .csv file, complete the following steps:
On the Enterprise demand plan page, select the vertical ellipsis.
Choose Import Forecast Overrides.
The Import Forecast Overrides page appears.
Under Upload files, choose Download CSV template to download the .csv file you need to use to add the override values.
The .csv file will contain the headers from the dataset you used to generate the forecast. The .csv file can only contain upto 1000 rows and the file size should be within 5 MB.
After the .csv file is updated, you can drag and drop the files or choose select files to add the file.
Choose Upload overrides.
If the upload fails, check the following:
Make sure the required fields override_start_date, override_end_date, value, and reason_code are populated.
The supported reason codes are Promotion Holiday, Seasonal, New Product, Product Rampdown, and Others.
Make sure the override_start_date and override_end_date is the first day of the week or month depending on your configuration.
Under Import Forecast Overrides Status, you will see the status of all the forecast overrides you uploaded.
You can filter the forecast override status by Data Uploaded, User ID, or upload status.
Demand Plan scheduler
Schedulers in Demand Planning determine when forecasts are generated and demand plans are finalized. Schedulers can be configured to operate automatically at set time intervals (auto schedulers) or triggered manually. Auto-schedulers ensure that the planning process runs smoothly and consistently accordingly to predefined timelines, while manual schedulers gives you the flexibility to initiate forecast refreshes and finalize demand plans.
Manual refresh and release – Make sure you choose Manual under Demand Plan Scheduler when you configure demand planning. To start a forecast refresh, on the Demand Plan page, select the three dots on the top-right, and choose Generate Forecast.
Select Finalize demand plan, if the demand plan is final and ready to be released to downstream processes.
Once the demand plan is final, the information is published to the Forecast data entity in Data Lake and to Amazon S3. The status on the demand plan page for this plan is changed to Published. You can view the Amazon S3 link under Settings > Organization, Demand Planning, Publish Demand Plans. You can see the Generate forecast button to start the next planning cycle.
When the Finalize demand plan is not selected, Demand Planning will publish the forecast as an interim version to the Forecast data entity in Data Lake. The status is changed to Closed. You can see the Generate forecast button to start the next planning cycle. Demand planning will initiate a new forecast as set in the demand planning configuration page and will use the same start date as the previous plan.
Automatic refresh and release – Make sure you choose Auto under Demand Plan Scheduler when you configure demand planning. For more information, see Configuring Demand Planning for the first time to create a forecast.
