Forecast Pro’s tutorials are designed to give you an overview of Forecast Pro’s functionality. The tutorials are organized into two sections: General Operations and Forecasting Operations. The General Operations tutorial is designed to teach you how to use the Forecast Pro interface, while the Forecasting Operations tutorial focuses on customizing your models and forecasts.
The Tutorials include both video and written lessons. All videos appear as red links, and the links will launch the videos on Forecast Pro’s YouTube channel. You may use the links below or use the Bookmarks panel to navigate to each written lesson.
The first five lessons in the General Operations tutorial provide an overview of core functionality. You should be up and running after going through the first five General Operation lessons.
The General Operations tutorial is designed to teach you how to use the Forecast Pro interface. The first five lessons in the General Operations tutorial provide an overview of core functionality. You should be up and running after going through the first five General Operation lessons.
Getting Started (video) and Getting Started (written) both walk you through a sample forecasting session using automatic model selection.
Advanced Navigation teaches you some techniques to efficiently navigate the program and customize reports.
Customizing Graph Views teaches you how to work with and customize Forecast Pro graphs.
Data Considerations teaches you how to prepare your data.
Updating a Forecast Project teaches you how to update your forecast project as new data become available.
Pareto Analysis teaches you how to use Pareto analysis to assign ABC classifications to your forecast items and how to sort and filter reports.
Operating from the Command Line teaches you how to operate the program from the command line.
The Forecasting Operations tutorial focuses on customizing your models and forecasts.
Using Forecast Modifiers teaches you how to use forecast modifiers to dictate model selection.
Building Event Models teaches you how to build event models to capture promotional and seasonal effects.
Detecting and Correcting Outliers teaches you how to use Forecast Pro’s outlier detection and correction functionality.
Machine Learning Overview (video) walks you through some machine learning basics and shows you how to build custom and automatic machine learning models in Forecast Pro. What is Machine Learning – and Will It Improve My Forecasts (video- coming soon) gives a more in-depth description of how machine learning is implemented in Forecast Pro and when to use it to improve your forecasts.
Building Multiple-Level Models teaches you how to set up and forecast a multiple-level hierarchy.
Building Custom Component Models teaches you how to prepare forecasts using the custom component model Custom component models are useful in a variety of situations including (1) customizing the trend for longer-term forecasts, (2) customizing the seasonal pattern for new products or short data sets and (3) defining the impact of future events that have not occurred historically.
New Product Forecasting teaches you how to forecast new products prior to historic data being available, how to use forecast by analogy to forecast new products based on similar products, how to use the custom component model for new products, how to manage new products in your forecasting process and how to use the Bass model.
Building Dynamic Regression Models teaches you how to build and evaluate dynamic regression models.
Using Weighting Transformations teaches you how to use weights to adjust for trading day impacts and how to account for a 4-4-5 calendar.
Out-of-sample Testing teaches you how to assess forecasting performance using a holdout sample approach.
All lessons use sample data provided with the software.