HP 3000 Manuals

Creating a Business Unit File [ HP RXForecast Users Manual for MPE Systems ] MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation

HP RXForecast Users Manual for MPE Systems

Creating a Business Unit File

Once you have gathered historic data and expected future values for a
business unit, you are ready to create a business unit file.

You may want to use an editor to create a flat ASCII file. Or you can
copy and modify TRAPPER.BUS, the business unit file we have supplied (it
is installed in the same directory as HP RXForecast).

Name your business file with the extension .BUS. Although files with
extensions other than .BUS are accessible by HP RXForecast, files with
the .BUS extension will appear in the Forecasts command NEXT dialog box,
thereby making their selection easier.

Caution The maximum number of lines any one business unit file can have
is 1000. You will probably never reach this maximum. If,
however, you ever do reach this maximum, you can work around it
by creating separate business unit files.

Look at TRAPPER.BUS, shown below, to see what a business unit file looks
like.

Month Date Year Business Unit
===== ==== ==== =============
03 01 1988 130
04 01 1988 125
05 01 1988 100
06 01 1988 115
07 01 1988 124
08 01 1988 130
09 01 1988 140
10 01 1988 145
11 01 1988 150
12 01 1988 165
01 01 1989 170
02 01 1989 175

The first two lines of the business unit file are for documentation only.
You can enter any text you want on these two lines. Enter two blank
lines if you do not want any text.

The rest of the lines are numeric fields. These numeric fields--month,
date, year, and business unit--are described in the following section.
There must be four numeric fields on each line, and entries must increase
chronologically. You can have no extra text or numeric fields on the
line. Input of the fields is free format. Data does not need to be
columnar.

Fields and Options

Before you can create a business unit file, you should understand the
relationship of some of its numeric fields to options in HP RXForecast

The first field of the business unit file is the month. It can contain
any number from 1 through 12. Entries must increase chronologically.

Tip The first date chosen on the Forecasts command dialog box should
correspond roughly with the first date in the business unit file.

The second, or "date," field indicates the summarization level.
Therefore, it relates to the Points Every option on the Forecasts command
dialog box.

Depending on the summarization level you choose with the Points Every
option, the second or Date field of a business unit file is interpreted
as follows:

Table 4-1. Date Field Interpretation

You can avoid entering every day of the month in the second field when
you want day of month summarization. You can leave a time gap if the
business units in field four do not change from one day to the next.
That is, if a time gap is left in the business unit file, it is assumed
that the previous file entry applies for the entire gap.

An example makes this easier to understand. Consider the following file:

Month Date Year Orders

8 1 1989 1000
8 15 1989 1120
9 1 1989 1200

Dates 2 through 14 have been omitted. HP RXForecast will assume that the
business unit "1000" applies to the first 14 days of August 1989.
Similarly, 1120 orders will be assumed to apply to dates 15 through 31.

If you select Points Every Week on the dialog box, the second field of
the business unit file you choose is interpreted as a week number.
Therefore, it should contain either a 1, 2, 3, or 4. See "Seasonality
Level Option" for information on how HP RXForecast divides a month
into 4 weeks.

If you select Points Every Month on the dialog box, the second field of
the business unit file should contain a 1 since the business unit applies
for the period starting on the first day of the month and ending on the
last day.

Tip Create a separate business unit file for each Points Every option.
Use a naming convention that indicates which summarization level is
covered in the second field. For instance, SUMDAY.BUS for
summarization to the day, SUMWEEK.BUS for week, and SUMMONTH.BUS for
month.

The fourth field of the business unit file is used to enter the number of
business units for the particular month, date, and year specified by
fields one through three. In the example file, for instance, the fourth
field indicates 1000 orders for the first 14 days of August.

Tip Be careful when you build a business unit file. Little error
checking is done on the file. A business unit file may look
acceptable for forecasting when, in fact, it is not.

HP RXForecast disregards any line you have left incomplete or blank in a
business unit file. Remember that you must enter four numeric fields on
each line. Any line that does not contain four numeric fields is
disregarded. This may produce an unexpected or undesirable result.

There will be instances, however, when you know certain days are atypical
(such as holidays) or when you don't have a business unit estimate
available. You will want HP RXForecast to disregard these times. The
proper way to indicate such times in your business unit file is by
entering a -1 in the fourth field. HP RXForecast interprets a -1 to mean
that it must disregard that day.

By using a -1 rather than leaving a field blank, you create a business
unit file that allows you to disregard any day you wish and still produce
a reliable forecast.

NOTE This feature is only available with the Business Units forecasting
method. See "Managing Data Effectively" for information on how
to extract and append logfiles in order to disregard irrelevant or
misleading data.

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation