Demand Plan Phase

User Accessibility

Demand Plan pages are visible to users logged in as Process coordinator or Sales Team.

This set of pages is for Sales Team to update forecast data, and review the changes that have been made. A user can only see the assigned forecast data.

Forecast data is listed by each product, customer, and customer location. By default* it is initialized from attribute Initial Forecast (Customer Product Data tab) in the uploaded file, and only time periods within the Forecast Window** are displayed.

* Alternatively, forecast data can be initialized from a reference data of your choice. It is defined in configuration step 3.

** Forecast Window is about how many periods beyond can be edited, and it is defined in configuration step 3.

Demand Plan

On this page user can edit forecast numbers accordingly. There are the following areas on this page:

  1. Line chart

  2. Edit forecast data

  3. Differences and comment

  4. Side panel

  5. Status bar

../_images/demand_plan_main.gif

Line chart Forecast Trend displays the selected demand and reference data by period.

In Forecast table, data is displayed according to the Levels sidepanel for Customer, Location and Product. The levels are initialized with the first Reporting Level. User may leave a comment for each changed number. When switching to another reporting level, comments stay visible .

An example of comment attached forecast change:

../_images/demand_plan_comment.png

In the status bar, the Forecast Status area shows one of the three status:

  • Initialized: this is the default status when new dataset is loaded;

  • Open: after saving changes, the status becomes open;

  • Finished: click on the status, it switches between Open and Finished.

Summary

This page shows changes made in the Demand Plan phase. For example, a bar chart shows the initial forecast, current forecast and selected reference data side-by-side. The table below Overview of Changes lists all (%) changes that have been made. Another table at the bottom List of Comments allows you to see the comments associated with each change, if any.

  • Forecast Status

As an Account Manager, the forecast status is one of Initialized, Open, or Finished. The status is visible to users in the Process Coordinator group, or the user that is defined in Resource Relation sheet.

Your status begins as Initialized. When you click Commit Changes, your status becomes Open. The status is displayed at the bottom status bar. After it becomes Open, you can click it to let it become Finished (although you will still be able to make adjustments.). If you click on it again, it will be back to Open status.

  • If you are a manager for a group of Account Managers

This is defined in Resource Relation sheet.

See the your team members' status and the last time saved in the table Forecast Status Information. In the column Selected Sales you can choose which team members' data to view in the Demand Plan page. Please note that only the selected sales data will be included the charts/tables on this page.

  • If you are in user group Process Coordinator

There is a download button (page action) for you to export ALL Account Managers' data into an Excel spreadsheet, ordered by Customer, Location, Product, and Period. Besides the current forecast, the download also includes the corresponding forecast reference data, the download date, and finalized date of each forecast.