History Forecast Template

As a Demand Planner
I want to create a new forecast for the coming months based on the average of the last few months' actual sales
So that I have a statistically grounded starting point for each planning cycle without manual calculation

Setup:

1. Open History Forecast Templates and create a new template.
2. Set Forecast Name, Forecast Period (Month), and Forecast Action (Replace).
3. Set Calc. Forecast Value To DateFormula to <-CM> (end of last month) and No. of Calculate Periods to 3. The system calculates the From Date as three months before the To Date.
4. Set Create Forecast From DateFormula to <CM+1D> (start of next month) and No. of Create Periods to 3.
5. Leave Multiply Forecast by Factor at 1.
6. Open the Flexible Forecast page and click Calculate Forecast based on history. Select the template and run.
7. The system reads the total Qty Sold + Sales Qty for each item over the three-month look-back window, divides by 3, and creates three monthly forecast entries per item starting next month.

Note: The historical read uses the Flexible Forecast calculation engine and respects the location and dimension filters set on the template.

As a Planning Administrator
I want to configure the History Forecast Template with rolling date formulas so that the look-back and creation windows always recalculate from today's work date
So that the same template can be run every month without anyone changing dates manually

Setup:

1. On the History Forecast Template, set Calc. Forecast Value To DateFormula to a formula relative to today (e.g. <-CM> for end of last month, <-1D> for yesterday).
2. Set No. of Calculate Periods to the desired number of look-back periods.
3. Set Create Forecast From DateFormula to a formula for when the new forecast should begin (e.g. <CM+1D> for start of next month, <+1D> for tomorrow).
4. Set No. of Create Periods to the number of future periods to create.
5. Each time the template is run, the system recalculates all four dates from the current work date before reading history or creating entries — no manual date maintenance is needed.

Note: When a date formula is set, the corresponding fixed date field is recalculated automatically whenever the formula or period count changes. The From Date for the calculate window and the To Date for the create window are always derived, never entered directly.

As a Demand Planner
I want to apply a multiplier to the historical average before creating forecast entries
So that I can account for expected growth, seasonality adjustments, or strategic targets without manually editing every entry afterwards

Setup:

1. On the History Forecast Template, set Multiply Forecast by Factor to the desired multiplier (e.g. 1.15 for 15% growth, 0.9 for a 10% reduction).
2. The factor is applied to the calculated historical average before the forecast entries are written. The minimum value is 1 — the factor cannot reduce the forecast below the historical average via this field.
3. Run the template as normal.

Note: The factor applies uniformly to all items included in the run. For item-specific adjustments, edit individual forecast entries manually in the Flexible Forecast view after running the template.

As a Demand Planner
I want to include open sales order quantities alongside actual posted sales when calculating the historical average
So that items with strong order books but low posted sales history are not underforecast

Setup:

1. On the History Forecast Template, enable Add Sales Demand in Period.
2. With this enabled, the system uses the Sales Qty (open orders) and Qty Sold (posted) columns from the Flexible Forecast view for the Create period rather than averaging over the Calculate period.
3. Each period's Sales Qty + Qty Sold is written directly as the forecast for that same period in the future creation window, rather than calculating an average and projecting it forward.
4. Run the template. The resulting entries reflect the combined open and posted demand from the equivalent historical periods.

Note: This mode is best suited when the historical period's open orders are a reliable indicator of future demand (e.g. recurring framework agreements). When Add Sales Demand in Period is disabled, the system calculates a simple average over the look-back window and creates equal entries for each future period.

As a Demand Planner
I want to generate a forecast that only reads history from a specific location and writes new entries for a specific location and dimension combination
So that the history template produces a forecast that is correctly attributed to the right planning segment

Setup:

1. On the History Forecast Template, set Calculate Location Filter to the location(s) to include when reading historical demand (e.g. EAST|WEST).
2. Set Create on Location to the location code that new forecast entries should be written to.
3. Optionally set Global Dimension 1 Filter to filter the historical read by dimension value.
4. Set Create on Dimension 1 and/or Create on Dimension 2 to tag the new forecast entries with specific dimension values.
5. Run the template. History is read only from the filtered locations and dimensions, and new entries are created tagged with the specified location and dimension values.

As a Demand Planner
I want to generate weekly forecast entries rather than monthly ones
So that the planning system can work at weekly granularity for items with high demand volatility

Setup:

1. On the History Forecast Template, set Forecast Period to Week.
2. Set the calculate and create periods using week-aligned date formulas (e.g. <-CW> for end of last week, <CW+1D> for start of next week).
3. Set No. of Calculate Periods and No. of Create Periods in weeks.
4. Run the template. The system reads historical data in weekly buckets and creates one forecast entry per week per item for the creation window.

Note: When Forecast Period is set to Month, entries are placed on the first day of each month and span to the last day. For Week, entries are placed on Mondays and span to Sundays. The date boundaries are enforced automatically by the period calculation logic.

As a Planning Administrator
I want to include History Forecast Template execution as a step in a Reverse Planning batch so that the forecast is automatically refreshed before planning runs
So that planning always starts from an up-to-date forecast without requiring a planner to manually trigger the template

Setup:

1. Reverse Planning must be installed.
2. In the Reverse Planning batch configuration, add a Calculate History Forecast step and specify the History Forecast Template Code.
3. When the batch runs, it fires the CalculateHistoryForecast publisher event. The Flexible Forecast app subscribes to this event and executes the template for all items matching the item view defined on the batch step.
4. The resulting forecast entries are available immediately for the planning steps that follow in the same batch.

Note: If the Flexible Forecast app is not enabled, the subscriber exits without action and the batch continues normally. This means the batch setup is safe to deploy even in environments where the app may be temporarily deactivated.