Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS SOLUTION DE JOUR: SAS OTTAWA PLATFORM USER SOCIETY INTRODUCTION TO SAS FORECAST SERVER 26 TH NOV 2015

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. WHAT IS FORECASTING? SAS FORECAST SERVER Forecasting is all about predicting the future as accurately as possible, given all of the information available, including historical data and knowledge of future events that might impact the forecasts. -Rob J Hyndman A forecast is a numerical prediction of a future value for a time series.

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 3 WHAT IS FORECASTING? SAS FORECAST SERVER Prediction Interval History Forecasts

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 4 WHERE IS FORECASTING USED? SAS FORECAST SERVER

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. WHY USE SAS FORECAST SERVER? SAS FORECAST SERVER Generates large quantities of high-quality forecasts quickly and automatically Enables organizations to plan more efficiently and effectively for the future. Allows forecasters to focus their efforts on the most important forecasts. Easy to use GUI based interface Generates SAS code 14.1: Web-Based Interface

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. BENEFITS OF THE GUI SAS FORECAST SERVER Set up the hierarchy, parameters and business rules interactively Generate automatic forecasts Reconcile up and down the hierarchy: bottom-up, top-down or middle-out forecasting. Identify exceptions automatically and generate exception reports Incorporate individual judgement or outside information Test what-if scenarios and determine their likely effect on future demand Publish results

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS FORECAST SERVER FEATURES General features Fully automated to produce large quantities of forecasts Easy-to-use GUI (Forecast Studio) Interactive and batch Multiple concurrent users Modeling features Extensive capabilities for time series exploration Optimized model parameters Extensible model repository Intermittent demand UCM (unobserved components models) ARIMA(X) Dynamic regression ESM (exponential smoothing models) User-defined Project features Hierarchical forecasting Hierarchical reconciliation Overrides Events Management Outlier detection What-if scenario analysis

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS FORECAST SERVER INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY COMPONENTS Quickly create a very large number of forecasts Scalable Generate statistical forecasts with limited resources Manageable Produce sound forecasts following appropriate forecasting practices Reliable SAS® FORECAST SERVER Time Series Exploration SAS® Time Series Studio Batch Interface SAS® Forecast Server Procedures Forecast Modeling SAS® Forecast Studio SAS® FORECAST SERVER

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. GUI SAS FORECAST SERVER

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. WEB-BASED INTERFACE : NEW IN 14.1 SAS FORECAST SERVER

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. DEMONSTRATION AND RESOURCES

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS FORECAST SERVER DOCUMENTATION

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS FORECAST SERVER TRAINING There is also a BKS course “Forecast Value Added Analysis” that covers the business forecasting process (but isn’t specific to any SAS forecasting software offering). How to write code with SAS Forecast Server Procedures. How to forecast using the SAS Forecast Studio interface. How to write code with SAS/ETS

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS FORECAST SERVER HELP SYSTEM

Copyright © 2013, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. SAS FORECAST SERVER SAS PROFESSIONAL SERVICES DIVISION The SAS Analytic QuickStart enables your analytical experts to work hand-in-hand with SAS Analytical Consultants as SAS Forecast Server™ is deployed within your organization. SAS Analytical Consultants will design a custom knowledge transfer session to help your analytical specialist quickly learn and utilize the SAS products to meet your specific project’s needs and review best practices for the construction of projects in SAS Forecast Server™.