Analyze Forecast Data in Smart View

In Analyze an Application in Smart View, you learned to analyze data in Smart View. In Modify an Essbase Outline, you added a Forecast member to the outline, and seeded it with data.

Now you'll reconnect to the cube in Smart View, and do further analysis of the data.

1. Open Excel and create a worksheet like the following one, by typing the member names in these cells: A3=Market, B3=Product, C1=Year, C2=Actual, D1=Sales, D2=Forecast.
   
   

2. On the Smart View ribbon, reconnect to Basic cube in the Sample_Dynamic application.
   
   

   Your previous connection URL should be shown in the list of Private Connections.

3. When prompted to log in, connect as the user you provisioned.
4. To populate cells with data values, click Ad hoc analysis.

   In the resulting grid, you should be able to see the results of your calculation. The yearly sales data refreshes for both Actual and Forecast, and the forecast is about 3% higher than the actual:
   
   

5. To test that the calculation is correct, create this Excel formula, =D3/C3, in cell E3, which divides the forecast data by the actual data, to ensure that D3 is 3% higher than C3.
   
   

   The test result should confirm the 3% increase, in which Actual is 400511, Forecast is 412526.3, and E3 is 1.0.

   
   
   
6. Zoom in on Product and Market. You can see that for all products and all markets, the forecast data is present and is 3% higher than the actual.
   
   
7. Now, build a worksheet that you will use to do a data analysis on the forecast, and make some changes.
   1. Click the cell containing Forecast, then click Keep Only.
   2. Select cells A3-B3 containing East and Colas, then click Keep Only.

      The grid should now look like this:

      
      
      
   3. With cells A3-B3 still selected, click Zoom In to view per-state information for detailed product SKUs.

      The grid should now look like this:

      
      
      
   4. Pivot the Year dimension down into the columns. Highlight member Year, and select the arrow next to zoom in on the Essbase ribbon. Select Zoom to bottom to see the bottom level of the months.

      The grid should now look like this:

      
      
      
   5. Enter some monthly values to create a Diet Cola forecast. For example, enter 500 in each of the cells in the range C5:H5.
      
      
   6. Click Submit Data, and notice that the full year forecast in cell O5 changes to 3000, which is the sum of 500 in each of 6 months.

In this task, you learned how easy it is to analyze and edit the cube in Smart View, as long as you have the correct provisioning.

In Create an Application and Cube in Cube Designer, you’ll get familiar with Cube Designer.