Forecast Collaboration

Forecast Collaboration allows you to view and respond to your customers' estimated demand for future periods. By sharing these estimates, you can proactively communicate potential shortages and help your customers make better-informed supply decisions.

View Customer Forecasts

Access the main dashboard and open a forecast to see its details. You can only see forecast lines explicitly assigned to you.
  1. From the main navigation menu, select Forecasts to open the Forecast Collaboration dashboard.
  2. On the dashboard, locate the forecast you want to review. You can use the search bar or apply filters to narrow down the list by customer, status, or date.
  3. Select a forecast row to open it and view its detailed line items.

The Forecasts table provides a high-level overview of demand, including:

  • The current state of the supply

  • The status of your feedback

  • The time period used for the forecast

  • The number of periods where demand is set and cannot be modified, typically because they are within the production lead time.

  • The number of periods beyond the lead time where the customer specifically requests your feedback.

Respond to demand

After a customer publishes their demand forecast, you must respond with the inventory or capacity you can guarantee for the specified time periods.

  1. Open the forecast you need to respond to.
  2. Navigate to the Lines table to view the individual items requiring your feedback.

To help track supply, use the following rows:

  • Demand: The amount of items the customer expects to receive.

  • Supplier Response: Enter the amount of inventory you have available for the specified period.

  • Shortage/Surplus: This field automatically calculates the difference between the customer's demand and your response.

  • Change in Demand: This row shows how the customer's demand has shifted since your last response.

Note:

Alerts and notifications are generated only for time periods where a response is required.

Track forecast changes

The forecast History view provides a complete audit trail of all modifications made throughout a forecast's planning cycle. This allows you to see how the forecast has evolved, identify who made specific changes (you or your customer), and maintain accountability.

For confidentiality reasons, your history view is automatically filtered. You can only see the history of changes related to your own forecast responses and updates from your customer. All updates made by other suppliers are hidden from your view.

  1. Select the Forecasts tab from the top menu.
  2. Open a specific forecast.
  3. On the forecast page, expand the History section to reveal a detailed log of all relevant changes.

The History section shows a chronological log of updates. Each entry in your history log provides the following key information:

  • User: The person who made the change (either you or your customer).

  • Timestamp: The exact date and time the change was made.

  • Change Details: A clear description of the update, including the field that was modified, the previous value, and the new value. For example, "Supplier response updated from 200 to 250".

This log gives you granular visibility by recording any changes made to the following parts of the forecast:

  • Forecast Header

  • Line Items

  • Specific Intervals

Use line-level comments

You can communicate directly with your customers regarding specific items using line-level comments.
  1. Open the forecast you are working with.
  2. In the Lines section, select the Add Comments icon next to the relevant line.
  3. Enter your comment in the window. You can include up to 10 attachments.
  4. Select Add Comments to send it to the customer.
You can edit or delete comments you created by selecting the three-dot menu next to the comment in the history. You cannot modify comments posted by the customer.