View and Edit Forecasts

This page allows you to see the results that the Forecast service produced as well as allowing you to modify the results based on business drivers. There are 5 major sections to the page

• Metric/Dimension selection (left)
• Modification pane (right)
• Graph (top middle)
• Grid (bottom middle)
• Menu items (upper right)

When the page first loads, there is nothing displayed in the grid and graph. You must make selections in the Metric/Dimension area first. The list of metrics is all the metrics that were selected during the new forecast wizard. Once a metric is selected, then the list of dimensions is populated. The dimensions shown in the list are based on the metric selected and the contact groups selected during the new forecast wizard. Once a combination of metric and dimension is selected, the grid and graph sections will be populated.

The grid and graph are two different visualizations of the same underlying data. There are 5 distinct series.

• Modified History
  • Actual history with the outliers and any missing data normalized
• History
  • Actual history sent to the forecast service
• Fitted
  • Shows how the same method and parameters would fair against history
• Total Forecast
  • Includes all modifications
• Base Forecast
  • Actual results from the Forecast service

Individual series can be toggled on/off by clicking the circle next to the name. This will hide the series on both the grid and graph. The Total Forecast values is made up of the base forecast plus/minus all modifications that are applied against the individual forecast. The graph shows only the total forecast line while the grid shows the total forecast values plus all the values that are produced by each modification. There is a timeline slider in the middle that will allow you to zoom in on a specific time period. The grid and graph will display the data from the selected time period.

The Modification pane is a slide out panel from the right hand side. It contains all the information about all the modifications that pertain to the selected metric and dimension combination. Each modification is shown as a separate “card” in the list. By default each card shows just the title, it can be expanded to show more information about the modification. There is an action menu at the top which allows you to select which information to show in the drop down as well as expanding all the modification information. Items that can be seen are:

• Start and End Dates
  • Modification is only during these dates
• Dimensions
  • All the Dimensions that the modification applies to. It can apply to multiple dimensions at the same time.
• Metrics
  • All the Metrics that the modification applies to. It can apply to multiple metrics at the same time.
• Last Modified by
  • Who last modified and when
• Created by
  • Who created and when

You can disable/enable items by checking the checkbox next to the item. You can change the order of the modifications by dragging and dropping them. This change will affect the calculated values.

Example

• Base Forecast 1000
• Modification 1 Add 10% 100
• Modification 2 Maximum 1050
• Total Forecast = 1050

If you swap the order in which you make the modifications, you get the following result:

• Base Forecast 1000
• Modification 2 Maximum 1050
• Modification 1 Add 10% 105
• Total Forecast = 1155

You can add a new modification by clicking the pen icon.

You can show/hide disabled modifications by using the toggle button.

Each modification card has an action button where you can edit or delete the modification. Edit will bring up the same forms as were used for the creation of the modification, prepopulated with the current information. Delete will delete the modification, it does not disable, it will no longer be in the system.

The graph is the graphical representation of the forecast data. The grid is the same data as the graph just in tabular form. They can show any or all of the series at the same time. Hovering over a point on the graph shows you all the data for the visible series for that specific date. They both show the date between the start and end dates in the date slider.

Menu Items In the upper right there are several menu items.

• Save
  • Save changes to modifications
• Close
  • Return to the Forecast Landing Page
• Comments
  • View/Add Comments about this forecast
• Add Modification
  • Brings up the add modification wizard
• Total Forecast for all metrics in metric group toggle
  • Shows the Total Forecast values for each metric in a metric group. If you had selected sick time and toggled this feature on, it would show you the total forecast for each metric in shrinkage stacked on top of each other. This is useful to be able to see the total shrinkage number. The same makes sense for Handle times as well.