Summary
The event editor allows you to create, modify and edit events in StockIQ. Events allow you to inform the forecast algorithm about unusual behavior to improve accuracy of your forecasts - see the Events Overview for more details.
Creating Events
You can access the Event Editor by clicking Edit --> Events in the Forecast Manager, or by double-clicking any existing event on the Forecast chart.
Events can be created at any level of the hierarchy and will synch up and down the hierarchy automatically.
NOTE:If you are viewing an event at a different level of the hierarchy than which it was created, it will be read-only. You will see a message that says:
Additionally, StockIQ can auto-create an event for you if you click on a sales order in the Demand Order Detail.
Event Fields
To add a new event, click the "+ Add" button, and fill out the fields:
- Event Name - Enter a meaningful name for the event, such as "Christmas Promo" or "Midwest Flood 2019" to make it clear why the event exists.
- Units - Events can be created in terms of a number of Unit uplift, or a Percent uplift, e.g. a 20% lift predicted by sales, or, eventing out a large 1000 unit order from a one-time customer.
- Interval - Allows you to create events with a daily, monthly, or weekly scope. StockIQ will synch the default interval to your forecasting interval, and this is recommended most of the time.
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Event Group - This is populated by StockIQ automatically after the event is saved. Any events that you create will be in the group "Event." However, events are also used by different features in StockIQ to apply modifications to the forecast in much the same way that user-created events do. Some of these are:
- Event - a normal event created by you, the user.
- Lost Customer - An event created to represent the loss of a customer, through the Lost Customer Ship To screen
- Customer Move - An event created for migrating customer demand in-or-out
- Exceptional Sale - an event created due to a sales order being marked as exceptional.
- Promotion - an event created by the Promotion Planning logic in response to historical or future promotions
- Blanket Sales Order - an event created by the Blanket Sales Order logic in response to a blanket sales order. More detail is shown in the Blanket Sales Order Detail Dialog
- Estimate - an event created by the Estimates feature to cause or explain an uplift due to a salesperson estimate.
- Apply Estimated Effects - When an event is *not* of a known quantity, you have the option of applying StockIQ's estimate of the actual event quantity once the event moves into the past. When an event is created, a person might guess that the effect of the event is, say, 10%. However, StockIQ will analyze the difference between the time series with and without the event, and will make its own estimate of the actual effect of the event. Enabling this option can prevent "Over Eventing", such as can happen if over-optimistic salespeople are suggesting creation of too large of an uplift than what actually comes true.
Event Periods
Once you've filled out the basics for an event, enter in the quantities you expect for the event, in the periods of time that you expect it.
Add a new period by clicking the "+" in the periods grid. Select the month or week in the first column, and then enter your quantity in the second. StockIQ will fill in the estimated effects if applicable, after the event has moved into the past.
When you are done entering data for your event, click the "Save" button. The event will be saved, and when you exit the event editor, it the forecast chart will be refreshed.
Event Hierarchy & Inheritance
Events are synchronized up and down the forecast hierarchy, so that the effects of your events are synchronized at different levels of the hierarchy as well. This way, you can create an event for 100 units for a particular item-site-forecast group for, say +100 units, and see the same +100 also reflected at the product group level for that item.
Events are grouped together as you move up and down the hierarchy so that the number of individual event records stays manageable. For example, you wouldn't want thousands of individual events all appearing at the top level of the hierarchy. The events are grouped by a few key attributes of the event, such as the event type, the units, the interval, and so on.
Events created at a high level of the hierarchy that must be applied downward will have a label that looks something like "Parent Events: Group: Event, Units, Monthly", so they will look like this in the Event Editor:
Events from child hierarchy levels will appear similarly, except they will say "Child Events..."
Since these events are created at different levels of the hierarchy from which you are viewing, they will all show as "inherited" and cannot be edited directly in the event editor - you have to go to where the event itself is created.