Article Forecast

The Article Forecast projects an item's stock forward. It takes today's stock and adds or subtracts all open orders: what comes in from purchase, production and transfers, and what goes out to sales, production and transfers. That shows you when an item runs out and which order causes it.

The forecast only reads. Nothing is changed in D365.

Opening the forecast

There are three ways to open the forecast. Which ones you see depends on what your organisation subscribes to and has enabled for you.

A single article opens as a window over the page. If your organisation has the own window feature, you can switch on Open forecast and mutations in their own window in the settings; the forecast then opens as a separate tab or window.

The watchlist

The watchlist is yours alone; colleagues don't see it.

• ＋ Add: type an item number. With As variant you also enter the colour, size, style, configuration or version.
• In the Product Overview: right-click → Add to forecast or Remove from forecast.
• ✕ next to an item removes it from the list.

Click an item to load its forecast.

How the forecast calculates

• Starting stock: today's physical stock. Reservations are not subtracted, because the orders they are reserved for are already in the forecast. Blocked stock and stock in quality inspection are included.
• In: open purchase order lines, production orders not yet reported as finished, incoming transfers, and planned orders from master planning.
• Out: open sales order lines (minus what has already been picked), outgoing transfers, and the consumption of production orders that use this item as a component.
• Date: the confirmed date if there is one, otherwise the requested date. An order whose date has passed counts as today and gets the label OVERDUE +Nd.
• Period: 3 months back to 12 months ahead.
• Intercompany: orders with another company of your group are shown as the sale or purchase they are, but counted apart, as Intercompany sales and Intercompany purchase (tiles and monthly overview). A customer or vendor is a group company when D365 links it to a legal entity, or when it is in an intercompany customer group (see Settings).
• Planned intercompany demand: when a group company has a planned purchase order from your company, you see the planned delivery at the supplying company next to the receipt, labelled DERIVED. D365 shows that demand only in its net requirements; DynBrowser derives the warehouse from the item's order settings and the date from the coverage group's margins. When no warehouse is known, the line is not shown.
• Settings: under Settings → D365 extension → Article forecast you can have purchase order lines on certain locations left out and enter intercompany customer groups per company (as COMPANY:GROUP). Inside ProductieManager these two lists apply to all users and only an administrator can change them; a change reaches everyone within a minute. When DynBrowser cannot read the group companies from D365, the forecast says so and these orders count as ordinary sales and purchases.

Reading the forecast

Key figures

At the top are, among others, On Hand, Available, Reserved, what is still coming in (purchase, production, transfer) and what still has to go out (sales, consumption, transfer).

Daily velocity is what was delivered and consumed per day on average over the last 90 days.

Runway is the number of days until stock drops below zero:

• red: less than 14 days (the header then shows CRITICAL <14d);
• orange: less than 30 days;
• otherwise sufficient.

If stock never drops below zero, the forecast estimates how long the final stock lasts at the daily velocity.

Monthly overview

Per month, 6 months back and 6 ahead, what came in and went out. Click a chip to highlight that order type in the list.

Chart

The Stock Projection shows the net stock over time, with incoming (dashed green) and outgoing (dashed red). ▲ is a receipt, ▼ a delivery. A dashed or faded marker is UNCONFIRMED. If the coverage settings have them, you also see the minimum stock, maximum stock and reorder point.

Mutation ledger

At the top is today's stock per warehouse (On hand), with the minimum, maximum and reorder point. Below it every future mutation with date, type, order, status, location, quantity and Available: the running balance of that warehouse after this mutation. Click a column header to sort on that column; Available then stays the balance after that row in date order.

Labels on a row:

Filtering

• The buttons All, Sales, Purchase, Production, Trans. in, Trans. out and Prod. cons. show one order type.
• All Locations picks one warehouse.
• Planned shows or hides the orders that aren't firm yet: planned orders from master planning, production orders with status Created or Estimated (together with the consumption of their components) and purchase orders still in draft. They are off by default.
• Search… searches order, name, reference, status, location and date.
• For an item with variants, choose the variant, or All variants.

Several articles: trying dates

For a forecast from a sales, purchase or transfer order you can try out what another date does:

1. Choose an item on the left and click an order line.
2. Pick a date, or use the slider (0 to 365 days), and click Apply. Apply to all does this for all lines.
3. Auto-plan dates proposes a better date per item: a date on which the line can be delivered and the other orders fall short as little as possible, as close to the current date as possible. The Margin days (2 by default) are already in the proposed date, and that is the date that was checked. Each proposal shows whether the line can be delivered and the item's total shortage now → after the proposal. You see the proposals first and confirm them.
4. Reset and Reset all put the dates back.

With Default warehouse you calculate all items with one other warehouse.

More actions

Right-click a row in the ledger for, among others:

• Open order in OrdersDashboard and Open order in D365;
• Article forecast (parent item): for consumption by a production order, the forecast of the product being made;
• Filter by warehouse, Filter by order type, Filter by reference, Filter by customer reference;
• Show/Hide planned orders;
• Copy order number and Copy item.

Which actions you see depends on the pages enabled for you.

Article mutations

Article mutations is the counterpart that looks back: what was actually delivered, received, picked, reported as finished and moved over the last 3, 6, 9 or 12 months. Open it by right-clicking an item or order (Article mutations), or from the forecast with Open article mutations.

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