Understanding Forecast Planning Dates

The system uses forecast dates to anticipate demand for customers. The information flows into forecasts automatically, based on dates that customers provide. You can establish forecast dates based on days, weeks, or months. To calculate this information, the system uses the beginning date and end date for a specific period, along with the number of workdays in the period.

Customers use their own method for generating and communicating dates. For example, these dates can occur at the beginning or end of the month, or on certain days of the week. You specify in advanced preferences a demand forecast date (type 28) to allow the system to receive planning records from customers and then convert the records into start and end dates to create forecasts.

The preference includes a week begin and end date rule, and a month calculation value. This table describes these values:

Month Calculation Rule	Description
0: Calendar Month (Default)	The customer uses the calendar month. The start of the month is always the first, and the end of the month is always the last day of the month. The system supports partial months.
1: Day of Week Occurrence	The date received represents the begin date or end date for a given month. For example, if you receive a begin date for the second Tuesday of the month, then all months start on the second Tuesday. Likewise, if the end date is the third Saturday, then all months end on the third Saturday.
2: Day of Week Anchor	Anchor rules are set up as a value between 0 and 6, representing Sunday through Saturday. This rule defines a planning period where the first occurrence of the anchor day is in the first week of a calendar month. The planning period is either four or five weeks, which ensures that the planning period complies with the anchor rule. Values are: 0: Sunday 1: Monday 2: Tuesday 3: Wednesday 4: Thursday 5: Friday 6: Saturday
3: Date Pattern Month	A fiscal date pattern defines the details of the planning calendar dates. Based on the received date, the system uses the fiscal date pattern to find the start and end dates for the month.