Forecasting

Hi Moji,

That was quick! But that is exactly what the forum is for. I hope you enjoyed the Excel Advanced course.

Yes there are tools you can add to Excel to help with forecasting and there are some built in tools too.

On the Data tab in the ribbon you have the forecast sheet tool. To use it you only need an array of dates, but these dates have to be evenly spaced (Yearly, Monthly, Quarterly etc) and you will need a list of values relating to these dates.

All you need to do is select the array of dates and the figures associated with them. Then click the data tab --> Forecast group --> Forecast sheet and it will produce a line chart with your forecast that you can insert into a worksheet.

You could add trend lines to your column charts to forecast (Right click a column and choose 'Add Trendline'.

You could add the analysis toolpack to your Excel environment (A bit like we added the Solver tool) which will give you tools to help with forecasting the tool will be displayed at the end of the Data tab in the ribbon.
File --> Options --> Add Ins --> Go --> Analysis toolpack

Or if you really want to dive into forecasting STL have an Excel course just related to forecasting. I include a link so you can have a look at the outline for that.

https://www.stl-training.co.uk/syl/161/excel-forecasting-and-data-analysis-training-course.html

Anyway Moji thank you for attending today I really enjoyed the group today.

Kind regards

Ron

Hi Moji,

Thank you for the forum question.

Yes Excel is an amazing tool for forecasting. We have a lot of tools which can be used to make forecasting models, whatever you are working with linear data, seasonality, non linear data, well as long as there are some kind of pattern in your date you can create accurate forecasting models in Excel.

When I run our Excel Forecasting & Data Analysis course I am using more than 30 different Excel tools to create different forecasting models.


Kind regards

Jens Bonde
Microsoft Office Specialist Trainer

Tel: 0207 987 3777
STL - https://www.stl-training.co.uk
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