Forecasting |
  
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Forecasting |
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Manually Editing Forecast Data
Forecasting for Events and Special Days
One of the benefits of Workforce is the ability to include forecast information which can later be compared against actual data to calculate the variance between the two figures. Not only can you tell if the goal was met, you can also determine how far over or under the actual figures are from the forecasted goal. Properly forecasting data can assist in gauging scheduled labor costs.
How the forecast data is calculated can vary depending upon business needs. Review Forecast Mapping and Day Part Sets to configure your forecasts.
The simplest way to calculate forecast data is to set a number of past weeks to be averaged in Labor Definitions. Setting the Default Forecasting Sales Weeks to '4' will average the last four Mondays to calculate Monday's forecast, the last four Tuesdays to calculate Tuesday's forecast, etc.
Note that when a schedule is made, the weeks included in the forecasting calculation will span from the most recent full week of data back through the number of weeks indicated and NOT from the date of the schedule back through the number of weeks indicated. Therefore, if you are creating a schedule for next week or a month from now, the same forecasting data will be used if those schedules are created on the same day.
Once a schedule has been created, users in groups with the ability to Allow Sales Forecast Edits can click on the Edit Forecasts icon and manually enter forecast data.
Manually entering the data will override any previously forecast calculations based on the number of weeks set in labor definitions.
If an event is scheduled, the default forecasting value of the event will be added to either the calculated forecast value or the manually entered forecast value for that day when the Forecast button is hit. The value added to the forecast from the event will be removed from any future forecast calculations based on previous weeks .
If a special day is scheduled that has been set up to use sales from the previous year, the previous year's data will populate as the forecast when the Forecast button is hit.
If an event and a special day fall on the same day, the scheduled event values will be added to the previous year's special day data when the Forecast button is hit.
Always make sure to hit the Save button after the Forecast button has been hit or manual data has been entered.
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