Users Forum 2014 Microsoft Forecaster Q&A

I would suggest looking at the Forecaster online help and on the Microsoft Customer Source web site for supplemental material.

Here are some of the data input short cut options detailed in the Help files:

1000* Enters 1000 across all periods.

1000>10% Enters 1000 in the first period and increases each subsequent period by 10%.

1000<10% Enters 1000 in the first period and decreases each subsequent period by 10%.

1000>10 Enters 1000 in the first period and increases each subsequent period by 10.

1000<10 Enters 1000 in the first period and decreases each subsequent period by 10.

1000*5 Enters 1000 in the first 5 periods.

Yes, in Forecaster’s Security window, each user is assigned “Assignments” for which Departments they can access. Security also determines if that user can access HR data at all. Some users will not have access to HR input screens or reports.

The Revenue tab can be used for creating multiple templates to allow custom entry of details to drive any accounts including Sales and Marketing.

Yes, you can post transaction balances or end balances in any period.

Microsoft has not provided any information regarding budgeting in Management Reporter. We are anxiously awaiting to hear their plans for budgeting.

If you are using FRx with GP, there is a connection between Forecaster and GP. Management Reporter does not currently have a direct connection between GP and Forecaster. Regardless, exports and imports are completely different than typing in balances by hand.

Yes, an additional tab is available for just that purpose although it could be used for breaking down the detail on any account(s). As a default, it is labeled “Revenue”.

Only one Revenue tab may be added. Another option is to create multiple Input Sets for revenue budgeting.

You can setup Security in Forecaster to limit which users can even see the HR tab. Managers are also limited to which departments they are assigned. Wages, taxes and benefits can be easily divided across departments by FTE’s or hours on the HR Master screen.

Microsoft issues a separate registration key for Forecaster. Forecaster users are ‘named’ user id’s, not concurrent users like GP.

Yes, the HR Master screen can allocate an employee’s wages, taxes and benefits across multiple centers. Double-click on the employee and allocate a percentage of the employee to another center.

You can add a Memo column to reports and print the report. This new column would need to be added to the Column Set for the report. The new column will reference the Notes field from the Forecaster database.

It is not a common scenario, but you might have a total column that calculates the total and, for whatever reason, you might need to override the calculated total with something else. It may be a percentage calculation for one row, but not all rows.

There is no budget limit field in Forecaster but you could use IF statements in the Calculation Set.

You can use the Excel Add-In tool to import data from Excel to Forecaster. But, I would just save the Excel data to a tab-delimited text file and import it into Forecaster which is far easier.

Fiscal years have always given Forecaster a problem with benefit calculations that involve an annual limit. Those account calculations would need to be moved to the correct months or adjusted manually.

A prior year’s budget may be included as a column on the input screen. It may also be used as a baseline which would be displayed on the Single Account Input Screen. Also, reports in Forecaster let you easily add columns from prior year budgets.

There is not a setting in the Forecaster Data Transfer Wizard to suppress/delete zero balances. Another option I often use is to Export data from Forecaster to Excel and use GP Excel Budget import.

On the Report worksheet, select the Detail Filter for the Input Set that the employees should be limited to.

Yes, report columns can represent Centers instead of Periods. Report building in Forecaster is very flexible. The Online Help (F1 in Forecaster) is very good at explaining the reporting options. We’re also available for reporting questions at noah.moseley@msxgroup.com.

Typically, you would not be importing any HR detail data like employee names and salary amounts into any actual periods. HR Detail data would only be imported into the budget months.

You cannot add more segments or delete segments after a Forecaster database is created. You can modify the length and label for the segments only.

For actuals, we would only import account balances for wages, taxes and benefits. Individual employees would not be imported for actual periods.

While Microsoft is no longer developing Forecaster, they are supporting it and it is still included on price lists. Forecaster will be supported by Microsoft and the MSX Group for several years to come.

Just deleting an Input Set does not delete the data from Forecaster’s database tables. The ZAP function under Tools gives many more options for actually deleting data.

You can have actuals columns and budget columns on the input screens and use the HR detail section. The HR detail section, however, would only be used to fill in balances for the budget columns.

Under Tools > Options, there is a checkbox in the lower right to “Automatically Run Input Set Calculations”. This is set by each individual user at their preference.

Yes, you are correct. Microsoft has not fixed this where the drop-down selections will work in the web access.

You could include this field as an account or one of the two revenue detail screen selections.

Yes, employee details may be imported more than once. New imports update existing details.

An administrator can always change periods back and forth from Posting to Historical.

When you install Forecaster and setup a connection to database is where you define segments. After the initial setup, some changes may be made on the Setup > Segments > Definition window. New segments may not be added after the initial database setup.

No, there is no way to import actuals directly from GP. However, it is very easy to use FRx or Management Reporter to grab data then import to Forecaster based on the segments you are, or are not, budgeting to versus what is in the GL.

If you’re using FRx, ExpressLink is an option to copy account balances from GP into Forecaster.

Correct, Historical data can NOT be changed (via input, calcs, imports, tasks, etc.).

Open the Spread Method, highlight every row in that Spread Method, delete all the rows, and Save the Spread Method (with no rows). Then, close the Spread Method.

There is a Forecaster Data Transfer Tool that can copy balances from Forecaster into GP.

DirectLink lets FRx pull data from Forecaster. This still works with FRx. It does not work for Management Reporter. Also, ExpressLink copies data from GP to Forecaster and works if you use FRx. ExpressLink does not work with Management Reporter.

The Salary Grade is used for each employee imported into Forecaster to determine if they are hourly or salaried and which accounts are used for their wages, FTE’s, hours and bonus money.

Yes, exports from Forecaster to Excel do not keep formatting.

You can import one month, two months, or any number of months.

All Posting will allocate from/to every posting-level account in a Summary-referenced Center or Account. “Use Source” allocates balances to the same accounts referenced in the ‘From’ section.

Yes, Forecaster has to post balances to valid posting-level accounts.

Validate and Recovery are used most often when a screen in Forecaster is left in a ‘locked’ status.

Recovery unlocks the Period worksheet, Rollups or Security screens.

Validate handles the following functions:

• Re-Index Table: Select the “Re-index Table” checkbox if you want Microsoft Forecaster to re-index your database tables to correct any errors. Periodic re-indexing of the database tables can improve overall system performance.
• Zap Event Log: Select the “Zap Event Log” checkbox if you want Microsoft Forecaster to erase the Microsoft Forecaster Event Log prior to any other Validation activities. When selected, the Event Log is zapped prior to any other selected options and so any errors that are in the Event Log after the Validate Database Utility completes can be assumed to have occurred during the validation.
• Compress Database: Select the “Compress Database” checkbox if you want Microsoft Forecaster to compress the size of your database. This option is only available in the version of Microsoft Forecaster for Microsoft Office Access. (Access databases automatically expand as the database needs more disk space and does not automatically shrink when data is removed. For this reason, you may be able to recover some disk space and improve overall system performance by running a Validate Database after deleting a large amount of data or running disk-intensive processes such as a Restate, large Post jobs, etc.)
• Validate Segments: Select the “Validate Segments” checkbox if you want Microsoft Forecaster to validate the data in each table in the database to verify that each Department and Account Code is valid. Microsoft Forecaster will confirm that no data exists for missing or invalid departments or accounts and that no summary-level departments or accounts exist in tables (that should only contain posting-level data). Invalid data will be corrected or removed.
• Validate Periods: Select the “Validate Periods” checkbox if you want Microsoft Forecaster to validate the data in each Period in your database. Microsoft Forecaster will check each period in the database tables to ensure that no invalid numbers exist. For example, due to rounding in mathematical operations, a database may place an extremely small number into a period instead of simply inserting a 0. This can cause confusing results in Microsoft Forecaster reports. The Validate Periods option will set any blank or missing values to 0 and will also set any number whose absolute value is less than 1.0 e-9 (that is, 0.000000001) to 0.

Note: The Validate Segments and Validate Periods options may take a substantial time to complete. The Re-Index Tables and Compress Database option times may vary based on the amount of data in the database and other environmental conditions such as network utilization, server load, etc.