Create New Plan
In this section, we will see how to create a plan series and the different plan configurations that are available in ValQ.
Steps to Create a Plan Series
Step 1: Click Plan
Click Plan on the main navigation bar to open the Plan tab. When you open Plan tab for the first time, a pop-up window Create a Plan appears on the screen.
Step 2: Configuration Options
In the pop-up window, you have the following options to configure your new plan series.
Series Name: Name your new series here. By default, the series would be named as Plan Series 1, Plan Series 2 and so on as and when you create new ones.
Starting Forecast Period: You can choose the forecasting period to start from any period in the series. Period can be of any time dimension, but throughout this document, for the purpose of illustration we'll consider the example of months in a calendar year.
With that, let us see the options available based on the month you choose.
Case 1: When you choose the first period as the starting forecast period
In this case, the forecasting is performed for the full year and there is no closed period or actuals.
Forecast Period: This automatically sets as Jan-Dec, since all periods (January to December) are taken as forecast periods.
Type: In this dropdown menu, you will be provided with three options to create a new series.
Copy Series
Forecast
Empty Series
Each of the above types is explained in detail here: Types of Series.
Configuration: Choose the underlying series or time periods from this menu, with which the new series has to be created.
Case 2: When you choose any other period as the starting forecast period
In this case, we will take April period as the starting forecast period and as a result Jan to Mar are considered as Closed Periods.
Forecast Period: This automatically sets as Apr-Dec.
Closed Period: All the periods before the forecast period i.e. from Jan to Mar are taken as Closed Periods. Closed period values can be chosen from Copy Series dropdown list consisting of all the existing series.
The Closed Period values are displayed in locked/disabled state which cannot be edited.
Type: In this dropdown menu, you will be provided with five options for configuring the forecast period values to create a plan series.
Copy Series
Forecast
Empty Series
Moving Average
Last Value
Each of the above types is explained in detail here: Types of Series.
Configuration: Choose the underlying series or time periods from this menu, with which the new series has to be created.
Case 3: Creating Multiple Forecast Periods in a Single Plan Series
You can create a plan series with multiple time frames, with each time frame forecasted using different type and configuration.
Starting Forecast Period: It can be Jan or any period. There may or may not be closed periods, depending on the selected period (Case 1 or Case 2 as discussed above).
Forecast Period: Here you can create multiple forecast periods by selecting different end periods for each of the series. New series can be added by clicking on the +Add new option available beside Configuration.
The + Add new option gets enabled only if the end period selected in the Forecast period is not the last period. (in the above example, end period is selected as Jun and not Dec).
Type and Configuration: Each forecast series can have its own type and configuration based on your plan requirements.
Use the Bin icon next to the period configuration to delete the required time period and reconfigure.
Step 3: Enable Driver based Planning
Enabling this option allows the users to configure driver inputs in the series and perform driver-based planning.
Note: This feature can also be enabled later using the option available in the toolbar.
For more details on enabling and configuring the driver inputs, you can refer to this section and this section.
Step 4: Keep Source Data in Report
By default, whenever a plan series is created, its initial source data (from which it was created) is not stored anywhere in the report. This implies that any changes made to the underlying source would impact all the series that are derived from it in the run time.
To retain the underlying source data and store it in the report you can check this option:
Upon checking this, the new plan series retains its initial source data values, even if any changes are made to the underlying source.
Example
Let's say you configured Plan Series 2 from Plan Series 1.
On checking this option, any changes made in Plan Series 1 do not impact Plan Series 2 and it retains the original source data as shown below:
Note: Consider the data and report size while choosing to store the source data in the report as it can affect the loading time for larger reports.
After retaining the source data, if at any point the report data needs to be updated as the source, the Refresh Data option can be used.
If this option is unchecked, Plan Series 2 reflects all the changes that you make in Plan Series 1.
Step 5: Add Series
After configuring all the details, click Add Series to create it.
Types of Series
Let us now understand the different options for creating a new series.
1. Copy Series
This option creates a plan series that exactly copies all the data from the underlying series chosen from Configuration menu. You can now perform planning on this new series that is a replica of the chosen existing series.
There are two examples below.
Example 1
The new series is created as an exact copy/duplicate of Sum of 2021 series.
Example 2
The new series is created as a copy of Sum of 2022 series only from April-Dec while the closed period data is copied from Sum of 2021 series.
Clicking on Add Series generates the below series with closed periods from January to March. The closed periods are locked and visually indicated by greyed-out cells.
2. Forecast
A new plan series can be created by performing time series forecasting on the historical data.
To perform it, select Forecast from the Type dropdown menu. Then, click Configure under Configuration to configure the settings such as the source and target periods, forecasting method, past data series, etc. that are needed to perform the forecasting.
This opens a pop-up where you can configure the weights to be applied to the previous series, the statistical method to be used, etc. as shown below.
For a detailed understanding of the forecasting methods, refer to the next section: Time Series Forecasting.
3. Empty Series
Choose this if you do not have any past data series and/or you want to plan from scratch. This creates a blank series in which you can key in your values.
On clicking Add Series, a blank series is created as shown below.
Empty Series can be used to perform Zero Based Budgeting.
4. Moving Average
This creates series values based on the moving average of the period you choose in configuration.
Clicking on Add Series generates the below series with a closed period from January to April which is greyed out to indicate that it is closed. The remaining values from May to December are the moving average of the closed period.
5. Last Value
This copies the values of the selected node to all the open periods. Last values can be useful when you want to retrieve and use a specific period's value for other periods.
In the below example, April to December values are taken from March month's values as Configuration is chosen as Mar.
You can perform a rolling forecast by changing the starting forecast period at the end of every month manually, while keying in the actuals for the closed period.
Subsequent new plans can be created by clicking + (Add New Series) at the bottom of the visual.
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