Scheduling the Process to Create Project Forecasts for a Region, a Practice, or a Group

You can schedule processes to automatically create forecasts for all the projects in a region, a practice, or a group. Once created, the forecasts are automatically linked to the parent region, practice, or group forecast, ensuring that the values roll up.

To schedule the creation of project forecasts for a region, a practice, or a group:

1. From the Planning Task Launcher tab, click Create Multiple Plans. The Multiple Plan Creation wizard displays.
2. For Template, select "Project Forecast (Multi-Plan Process)".
3. For Multiple Plan Criteria, select "Project".
4. [Optional] In the Plan Name field, enter a common name prefix for all project forecasts that belong to the region, practice, or group.
5. [Optional] Enter a common description for all project forecasts that belong to the region, practice, or group.
6. If appropriate, select values for the Label, Category, and Sub-Category fields that apply to all forecasts.
7. Click Next. The Configure Criteria Filters page of the wizard displays. This page enables you to define additional filters applied to the dataset when retrieving data from Analytics.

8. Define the dataset filter for the parent region, practice, or group. To do this:

   1. Search for and select one of the following dimensions:

      • "Region Level 01" if your parent forecasts are regions.
      • "Practice Level 01" if your parent forecasts are practices.
      • "Group Level 01" if your parent forecasts are groups.
   2. Leave the Operator field set to "Equals".
   3. Search for and select the parent region, practice, or group.

9. [Optional] Define additional filters. This can be useful if you want to further restrict the creation criteria. In most cases, you can proceed to the next step. To define additional filters, do the following:

   1. Click Add Filter.
   2. Search for and select the dimension whose values you want to filter.
   3. Select the operator used when applying the filter. For more information about the available options, see Operators.

   4. Depending on the operator that you selected, do one of the following:

      • If you selected "Equals" or "Does Not Equal", search for and select the values.
      • If you selected "Contains", "Does Not Contain", or "Starts With", enter the value that you want to use.
      • If you selected "Is Null" or "Is Not Null", proceed to the next step.
   5. To add more filters, click Add Filter and then repeat steps b-d.
   6. Select the filter logic you want to use to filter the data from a data source. For more information about the available options, see Filter Logic Options.
   7. If you select Custom Logic, define the logic you want to apply by entering a value in the Custom Logic field. For more information, see Custom Logic.
10. Click Next. The Configure Template Filters page of the wizard displays. This page enables you to specify values for the editable predefined filters.
11. Click Next. The Configure Relationships page of the wizard displays. This page enables you to select a parent forecast for the forecastsbeing created and select the placement of the child plans within the parent plan.
12. Under the name of the parent region, practice, or group forecast, select the scenario you want the new forecasts to roll up to. Typically, this is the Initial scenario.
13. Click Next. The Setup Multiple Plan Creation page of the wizard displays. This page previews the number of forecasts that will be created and enables you to embed plans and schedule future executions of the process.

14. Define the schedule for future executions of the process. To do this:

    1. Ensure that Schedule is selected.

    2. For Schedule Frequency, select one of the following:

       • Hourly: if you want the process to run every hour.
       • Daily: if you want the process to run once every day.
       • Weekly: if you want the process to run on specific days of the week. You can then select the days.
       • Monthly: if you want the process to run once every month. You can then select a monthly method to determine on which day of the month the process runs.
       Depending on your selection, additional options might be available. More information

       Schedule Process Additional Fields

       Field	Description
       Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat	Only available when "Weekly" is selected as the frequency. Determines whether the process runs on the specific day of the week. For example, if you select Mon, the process runs each Monday at the specified start time.
       Monthly Method	Only available when "Monthly" is selected as the frequency. Determines how to calculate the day of the month when the process runs. The following options are available: "Last Day of Month". Note that this is the last calendar day of the month. If a month ends on a Saturday, the process runs on that day. "Date" "Day of the Month" "Days Before Month End"
       Day of the Month (number)	Only available when "Date" is selected as the monthly method. Determines the date on which the process runs each month. For example, if you enter 15, the process runs on the 15th of each month.
       Day of the Month (picklist)	Only available when "Day of the Month" is selected as the monthly method. Determines on which occurrence of the day selected in Day of the Week the process runs.
       Day of the Week	Only available when "Day of the Month" is selected as the monthly method. Combined with the value selected for the Day of the Month picklist, determines on which occurrence of the day the process runs. For example, if you select "Last" and "Friday", the process runs on the last Friday of each month, regardless of date.
       Number of Days	Only available when "Days Before Month End" is selected as the monthly method. Determines how many calendar days before the end of each month the process runs. For example, if you enter 3, the process runs on January 28, February 25 (non-leap year), March 28, April 27, and so on. Note: If you set this to 1, the process runs on the day before last of each month. If you want to run the process on the last day of each month, use the "Last Day of Month" method.

    3. For Schedule Start Time, select the preferred hour when you want the process to run.

       Note:

       Only the hour part of your selection is used, the minutes are ignored. This is because the system checks for scheduled processes every hour on the hour and then executes them. If multiple jobs are found for the same hour, they are grouped and chained, running sequentially in the following order: Create Multiple Plans, Update from Analytics, and Send to Analytics.

15. Click Save. The forecasts are created in the background the next time the process runs. You can monitor its execution from the Asynchronous Process Jobs tab.