Importing a Driver Forecast Instead of Forecasting Driver Actuals

The Budget Creation module uses driver forecasts to determine aggregate staffing requirements for creating a bottom-up projection. By default, the Budget Creation module forecasts drivers and saves the forecasted values in the FCST_DRIVER table in the database. See Driver Setup.

Instead of these driver forecasts, you have the option to use imported driver data. This data is loaded into the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table in the database. If there is data in the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table in the database for a particular driver, then the Budget Creation module does not forecast data for that driver. Instead, the module uses the data from the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table. This table's data is only used if these two conditions are met:

  • The FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table contains data for the entire root time period for the forecast.
  • The root time period (FCTP_ID) for the data in the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table must match the root time period for which the forecast is generated.

If the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table contains data for only part of the root time period used for generating the forecast, then:

  • Forecasted data is generated for the driver for the entire time period.
  • When generating workload, Budget Creation module uses the data in the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table for any time periods for which data is available. For time periods for which there is no data in the FCST_DRIVER_IMPORT table, then Budget Creation module uses forecasted data instead. See Regenerating Workload.