Configuring Calendars and Events

You can define calendars and events to associate with a prediction to improve the accuracy of the prediction.

To use calendars and events with IPM Insights and Auto Predict:

1. Define calendars. From the Home page, click IPM, then click Configure, and then click the Calendar tab. See Defining Calendars.
2. Define events. From the Home page, click IPM, then click Configure and then click the Events tab. See Defining Events.
3. When configuring an IPM Insights job or an Auto Predict prediction definition, associate a calendar with the insight or Auto Predict job. Events are an option for the Anomaly insight job type and Auto Predict. See Configuring IPM Insights and Creating Auto Predictions for Forecasts.

Events and calendars are also available in non-Redwood themes for use with Auto Predict and Predictive Planning in forms and for Auto Predict users without access to IPM Insights, such as legacy non-Enterprise SKU users:

1. From the Home page, click Application, then click Overview, and then from the Actions menu, select Auto Predict.
2. From the Actions menu, select Calendar to define calendar or select Events to define events. See Defining Calendars and Defining Events.

Defining Calendars

A calendar defines the scope and range of the time series for selected cubes. For example, you can create a daily calendar, a weekly calendar, and an alternate calendar. You might want to create a calendar for a specific entity, because not all events are applicable to all entities. For example, Diwali applies to APAC and Thanksgiving applies to North America, so you can create an APAC calendar with its own events and a North America calendar with its own events.

You can use calendars on their own to quickly set up the time frame for insight and prediction definitions, or use calendars with events.

To define calendars:

1. On the Calendar tab, click Add Calendar.
2. Enter a name and description for the calendar.
3. From the Cube column, select the cubes the calendar applies to.
4. From the Time column, specify the time definition for the calendar by selecting the year and period for the start of the calendar. You can select specific members or use substitution variables.
5. From the Current column, specify the start of the prediction period. The previous period is the end of historical data.
6. Enter the Number of Historial Periods and Number of Future Periods, and then click Save .

To edit a calendar, from the Calendar list, double-click the row with the calendar you want to edit to make the options editable. Make any required changes, and then click Save . To discard your changes, click Cancel .

To delete a calendar, from the Calendar list, click Actions next to the calendar you want to delete, and then click Delete Calendar.

Defining Events

Events are associated with calendars.

To define events:

1. On the Events tab, click Add Event.
2. Enter a name and description for the event.
3. From the Type column, select the type of event:
   • One-off—An event you don’t expect to be repeated, but you want to include it in your data.
   • Repeat—An event that is regularly repeated, where increases or decreases will also be repeated. For example, holidays such as Diwali or Thanksgiving are repeating events.
   • Skip—Similar to a one-off event, it’s an event you don't expect to be repeated, however, you don't want to include it in your data. Data for Skip events is removed from the series.

     Note:

     If you define a Skip event that is shorter than your seasonality, it can affect the accuracy of the historical data. For example, you might define an event for Covid that is three months long, but your season is twelve months, so you have only nine months of data. You lose seasonality because the data is skewed. In these cases, it might be more effective to skip the entire season.
4. From the Calendar column, select the calendar that the event applies to.
5. From the Starts on column, specify the start date for the event.
6. From the Duration column, enter the event duration (the number of periods the event is valid). For example, in a daily calendar, if duration is 4, the event occurred for 4 days continuously from the start of the event. In a weekly calendar, if duration is 1, the event occurred for a week.
7. For regularly repeating events, from the Interval column, enter the interval for the repeat. For regularly repeating events, the interval should be a number that indicates after how many days, weeks, or months the event repeats. For example, in a weekly calendar, Christmas repeats after 52 weeks.

   You don't need to specify an interval for one-off or skip events.

8. For custom repeating events, from the Occurrences column, click and enter specific details about when the event occurs. For example, US Thanksgiving occurs annually, but on a different date each year.
9. Click Save .

Events are automatically set in Active status (indicated by the check mark in the Active column). You can clear the check box to make an event inactive. Only active events are taken into consideration during predictions.

To edit an event, from the Events list, double-click the row with the event you want to edit to make the options editable. Make any required changes, and then click Save . To discard your changes, click Cancel .

To delete an event, from the Events list, click Actions next to the event you want to delete, and then click Delete Event.

Importing and Exporting Events

You can export events to a .csv that you download, and then add or modify events. You can then import the events from the csv file. This process is a fast way to add many events, and can be valuable for auditing and troubleshooting event definitions.

To export events, on the Events tab of IPM Configure, from the Actions menu, select Export Events.

To import events, on the Events tab of IPM Configure, from the Actions menu, select Import Events, select the file and then click Import. You can then review the Import Events job. From the Home page, click Application, then click Jobs and then click the Import Events job that was run.

If you import an event with the same name as an existing event, the existing event is overwritten.