Modify Causal Factors

You use causal factors to understand the variation in historical demand and produce a highly accurate and adaptive forecast. You have 27 causal factors that you can use during the forecasting process to evaluate each item-organization and determine the impacts.

The causal factors include:

• 12 months of the year

• 7 days of the week when forecasting using daily data

• Trend

• Price

• 6 holidays (They include New Year's, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and three placeholder holidays. You can use these to model any other holidays.)

Note: Except for Price, all causal factors have a dimension of Time only and do not vary by item and organization.

Modifying Causal Factors

You can modify and repurpose causal factors to meet the demand planning needs. Since all causal factors are on shared measures, changes to one plan's causal factor values impacts other plans simultaneously. Typically, you load the causal factor data from a flat file and then modify as required.

To modify a causal factor:

1. Open a demand plan with history and horizon that matches the causal dates.

2. Create a table displaying the causal factor measure and relevant time period.

3. Modify the values of the causal factor and save. Next time you run any plan, the changes to the causal factor can impact the forecast.