• Product Description
• Principal Characteristics
• Forecast Pro Unlimited
• Forecast Pro TRAC
• Forecast Pro XE
  
• Which version best suits your needs?
• Integrating Forecast Pro
  
• Systems Technical Requirements

Product Description

Forecast Pro is fast, easy and accurate forecasting software for business professionals. The award-winning software is easy to learn and easy to use, making Forecast Pro the logical choice if you are currently forecasting with spreadsheets, guesstimation or other software which is not getting the job done—and are unhappy with the inaccurate results.

With Forecast Pro, you provide the historic data for the items you are forecasting and Forecast Pro does the rest. The built-in expert selection mode analyzes your data, selects the appropriate forecasting technique and calculates the forecasts using proven statistical methods. You can collaborate with colleagues to make adjustments to the statistical forecasts and easily document and save the changes. Forecast Pro generates the customizable reports and graphs you need to make convincing presentations to management. Automating your forecasting and integrating your forecast results with other planning systems are straightforward tasks with Forecast Pro. 

Principal Characteristics

With Forecast Pro, you can create accurate forecasts quickly and easily using proven statistical forecasting methods. Research has shown that no single method works best for all data, which is why Forecast Pro provides a complete range of forecasting approaches to address all types of business needs. Forecast Pro’s models accommodate seasonal demand, product hierarchies, product promotions, slow-moving items, causal variables, outliers and much more.

• Expert Selection - Expert Selection takes the guesswork out of forecasting. The built-in expert system analyzes your data, selects the appropriate forecasting technique, builds the model and calculates the forecasts—it even explains its reasoning in ordinary English!
  
• Exponential Smoothing - Twelve different Holt-Winters exponential smoothing models are provided to accommodate a wide range of data characteristics. The robustness of exponential smoothing makes it ideal when there are no leading indicators, and when the data are too short or volatile for Box-Jenkins. You can select the model and set the parameters yourself or let Forecast Pro do it automatically.
  
• Box-Jenkins - Croston's Intermittent Demand model and discrete data models are provided to accommodate low volume and "sparse" data (i.e., data where the demand is often zero).
• Exponential Smoothing - Twelve different Holt-Winters exponential smoothing models are provided to accommodate a wide range of data characteristics. The robustness of exponential smoothing makes it ideal when there are no leading indicators, and when the data are too short or volatile for Box-Jenkins. You can select the model and set the parameters yourself or let Forecast Pro do it automatically.
• Box-Jenkins - For stable data sets, Forecast Pro supports a multiplicative seasonal Box-Jenkins model. The model can be built completely automatically or interactively using a full range of screen-oriented diagnostics.
  
• Dynamic regression- FIf there are important leading indicators, use Forecast Pro XE's dynamic regression. You can include independent variables, lagged or transformed variables and build generalized Cochrane-Orcutt models. Using Forecast Pro XE’s self-interpreting diagnostics, you can build and compare alternative models with a few clicks of the mouse.
  
• Event models - Event models extend exponential smoothing by providing adjustments for special events like promotions, strikes or other irregular occurrences. You can adjust for events of several different types such as promotions of varying sizes or types, or movable holidays like Easter and Rosh Hashanah. Event models are easy to build and adaptable to a variety of situations.
  
• Multiple-level models - FMultiple-level models allow you to aggregate data into groups that can be reconciled using a top-down or bottom-up approach to produce consistent forecasts at all levels of aggregation. Seasonal and event indexes can be extracted from the higher-level aggregates and applied to lower-level data.
  

• Seasonal Simplification - This is a useful technique if you are forecasting data with more than 12 observations per year. Seasonal Simplification reduces the number of seasonal indexes used to model the data and often substantially improves forecast accuracy.
  
• Low Volume Models - Croston's intermittent demand model and discrete data models are provided to accommodate low volume and "sparse" data (i.e., data where the demand is often zero).
  
• Curve Fitting - Curve fitting provides a quick and easy way to identify the general form of the curve which your data are following. Forecast Pro supports four types of curves-straight line, quadratic, exponential and growth (S-curve).
  
• Simple Methods - This set of “simple” models can be extremely useful. Moving average, “same as last year,” percentage growth and fixed forecast value models are included.
  

Which Version Best Suits Your Needs?

To satisfy different needs, three editions of Forecast Pro are available—Forecast Pro Unlimited, Forecast Pro TRAC and Forecast Pro XE. Which edition is right for you, depends on a number of factors including how many items you need to forecast, which forecasting techniques you need to use, how you manage forecast adjustments, and whether or not you need to work with others to establish the final forecast.

Forecast Pro Unlimited and Forecast Pro TRAC are comprehensive forecasting systems designed for larger-scale forecasting jobs, collaborative forecasting, working with complex hierarchies, maintaining multiple forecast overrides, documenting your forecasting sessions and integrating with other systems. Most users of these solutions are preparing and updating forecasts on an on-going basis (e.g., every week, every month, etc.).

Forecast Pro Unlimited and Forecast Pro TRAC provide the foundation for creating a sustainable, well-documented forecasting process. If you:

• forecast more than 100 items on a routine basis; and/or
  
• collaborate with others to create the final forecast; and/or
  
• make judgmental forecast adjustments that need to be documented,
  

• Multiple units of measure 
  
• “Shuffling” (on-the-fly hierarchy changes)
  
• Exception reporting
  
• Accuracy Tracking
• Team Forecasting
  

1. Establish a file interface to one of the off-the-shelf Forecast Pro editions.
   
   
   • Establishing a file interface is straightforward and provides your users full access to all of the interactive capabilities of Forecast Pro. Forecast Pro Unlimited and Forecast Pro TRAC are particularly well-suited for integration with other systems, due to their highly customizable output capabilities and support for command-line operation. Software developers who integrate Forecast Pro into their solutions qualify for substantial discounts on software purchased for resale.
   
   
2. Incorporate the Forecast Pro SDK directly into your application.

• Incorporating the Forecast Pro SDK directly into your application provides completely seamless access to Forecast Pro’s powerful forecasting methodologies.
  

Systems Technical Requirements

Forecast Pro is a 32-bit program that runs under all current Windows platforms. Forecast Pro requires a minimum of 512 MB of RAM and 30 MB of hard disk space. With such modest hardware requirements, Forecast Pro can run on virtually any Windows-based computer!

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