We were forecasting with Excel formulas and dealing with huge swings of over or underproduction, and both were costing us. ForecastX was a great investment and immediately improved the accuracy of our forecasting (from 78% to 95% accuracy). The one on one training helped us dial in our forecasting methods and now we're confident in our numbers; it’s relieved a lot of pressure through our whole process!

-It took away a lot of manual work we were doing -It helped educate our team on a number of different ways we could be forecasting that we hadn't considered -I actually purchased the book that goes along with the software and it goes through the basics of forecasting all the way into different use cases and sophisticated strategies to consider

Currently we only have one team member using the forecasting software so it works great. If we wanted more visibility from other team members into the software, I believe we'd need to buy another license, not really a downside, just a consideration to keep in mind.

I have used ForecastX for more that a decade; competitors have come and gone. During that time ForecastX has been improved, formats have been updated, and many new features have been added, This is not a static package. No other competitor offers more support than ForecastX; if online support is not enough, it is easy to reach a real person to help solve your issue. ForecastX provides both online and face-to-face training for its product. You might be surprised how much you can learn in a day or two, even if you are starting from scratch!

ForecastX is not just a single piece of software; it is a progressive tool that grows with the user. The ForecastX Wizard (an Excel add-in) lets the new user begin with a powerful suite of tools which can be mastered one at a time with a great user manual and help feature. When the user requires more collaborative tools, or easier access to corporate data, the Atlas tool can be used. Interestingly, everything learned in the Wizard is immediately applicable, with identical menus and options in, Atlas. The graduated menu system guides both new and very skilled users in selecting appropriate options for each type of model available. Every classical forecasting technique is present in ForecastX, as well as a number of newer, forward looking tools. You could think of the tools (or models/algorithms) as divided into two categories. First, all the standard time series models are available (e.g., moving averages, all the smoothing models, decomposition, etc.) with some additional feature add-ones that are unavailable in software such as SAS or SPSS. Secondly, all the demand planning, or causal, models are also included. Every technique will display a complete set of diagnostic statistics that let the user evaluate precisely how well the model is likely to perform in the real world. Numerous graph options are provided in the results. There is nothing “behind the veil” here! The user can see exactly how the results were achieved; this is not “black box” software.

Because the results, both numeric and graphical, are presented in an Excel compatible format, it is easy to export results in a number of ways. But perhaps the exporting features could be strengthened.

For a company that is getting started in S&OP and the process is manual, for the cost and benefit of easily calculating a statistical baseline I'm not sure how a company would get started without it. Obviously an integrated planning solution investment is a better experience as a user, but if you're getting started in your journey and that investment isn't yet viable I'm not sure how you get started well without a ForecastX to get going.

The solution is incredibly inexpensive and easy to startup. Companies deploying S&OP often do so without a lot of broader engagement, support, and investment. When your only tools are your history and MS Excel, this speeds up your path to a forecast exponentially and very quickly gets you with a baseline to begin to engage the business to improve. If you build yourself a path to having the data archived in a format that works and to archiving your previous cycle demand planning data, ForecastX is an excellent bridge tool to get your Demand Planning process started.

The "cons" are not the fault of ForecastX. ForecastX is a very good enhancement to an otherwise very manual process. Data prep, archiving, and having standard work to the "Data prep" portion of the S&OP while utilizing ForecastX is critical because it's not systematized into an automated workflow like in your typical IBP/ERP deployment integration.

Easy to use and familiar plug-in approach to the end-users

Was missing some elements that we needed for our consensus proecss

Very satisfied with forecast X, it is great at generating a quick forecast that is mostly accurate.

The software is quick and mostly accurate when generating forecasts. Running quick check of the forecast is very easy. Lots of different forecast methods to use when forecasting.

There are so many features to use it is hard to know which ones to use and how it will effect the forecast that you generate. It would be nice to see in the software itself a how to explanation on what the various features can do instead of having to read through the manual.

I have modelled different situations, from single items to grouping items to events and New Products (Recent Products) launches as well.

The flexibility of usage allows you to improve or confirm your forecast signal just with few extra steps. Also, the parameters for forecast accuracy, as well as other statistical factors, are very valuable to understand the reliability of the signal.

I think an option to use grouping and events forecast together would be very valuable.

It has been extremely beneficial to our company. [sensitive content hidden] has been a great asset for Q&A.

The ease of use once done with Training. The software seems rigid at first but once you understand how it operates, you are good to go.

Speed, sometimes with mass amounts of data in the consensus view. The program starts to slow down.