Running the Update Demand Forecast Program

Use the Update Demand Forecast program to forecast the demand of one, some, or all products in your inventory.

You can run the program for a single product or buy line during the day, when necessary. When using the "All" or "Changes" option, schedule the program to run overnight because it can take a long time to complete.

To run the Update Demand Forecast program:

From the Purch > Forecasting menu, select Update Demand Forecast to display a selection list.
Select one of the following options to indicate the products for which to run the program:

Option	Selects...
All	All products in inventory.
Changed	Only those products that have sold since the last time you ran the Update Forecast Demand program. The system also tests products that, in a given period of time, have decreased in sales activity as compared to the average period between past sales. The system does this to include products in the "changed" group that might be experiencing a decrease in demand.
Buy Line	Only those products within a buy line. This option activates the Line/Product field, where you define the buy line. Use this option when you know that significant changes have been made to the products in a given buy line.
Product	Only a specified product. This option activates the Line/Product field, where you define the product. For example, if you correct an error on a transaction that affects a product's sales history, use this option to recalculate the product's demand.

The system populates the Select Group field on the Update Demand Forecast screen with your selection.

In the Branch/Tr field, enter a branch or territory to define the branches for which to run the update. To run the report for all branches and territories, enter All.
If you selected either Buy Line or Product in the Select Group field, in the Line/Product field, enter the corresponding buy line or product.
In the As of Date field, enter the actual or system variable date on which the forecast is based.

Note: When using the Phantom Scheduler to run a program at regular intervals, enter a variable date in this field. Otherwise, each time the program runs, it will use the same as of date.

Use a hot key to run the program:

Begin runs the program immediately.
Schedule displays the Phantom Scheduler, where you can schedule the program to run at a defined date and time.