Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Machine Learning Predictive Forecaster

January 15, 2025

Workday Adaptive Planning offers several features that allow users to achieve financial planning and analysis data solutions. One feature, predictive forecaster, leverages historical data to generate machine learning-based predictions within forecasted versions. With improved efficiency and accuracy, predictive forecasters can provide well-tuned predictions with the help of machine learning algorithms. In this blog post, we will delve into the steps needed to set up a predictive forecaster in Workday Adaptive Planning.

Step 1: Permission Sets

In order to access the predictive forecaster, navigate to the “Permission Sets” tab of the “Administration” section. From there click edit (next to the Permission Sets of the accessing users). Finally, make sure the predictive forecaster is checked off. Now predictive forecaster will be available under “modeling.”

Step 2: Navigation

In order to create a new predictive forecaster navigate to the “modeling” tab, choose “predictive forecast” and click “add new”.

Step 3: Necessary Requirements

To create the forecast, start by including a name and an optional description. Next, choose the sheet and the planned version that you want to populate with the data. Additionally, add the forecast start and end periods.

Step 4: Requirements continued

To continue filling out the necessary requirements select the accounts that you want to populate with the predicted data. There is the option to choose whether you want to populate based on levels or dimensions. Next for the “reference data” section, select the actual version that the algorithm will reference, as well as the start and end periods. Adaptive Planning requires users to maintain a 3:2 ratio of actuals to forecast.

Step 5: Algorithms

Finally, users must select which algorithm they want to deploy for their forecaster. AutoFit is the suggested algorithm because it selects the algorithm based on the seasonality of the data. Users also have the option to choose type of seasonality, add weekly seasonality, add multiplicative seasonality, to round values, and to add lever sheets. Several of these additional selections are only available for specific algorithms.

Predictive forecasting allows for users to leverage historical data to create well-defined predictions. The detailed criteria helps to create tailored data to the unique seasonality of the data.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Solution Provider for Workday Adaptive Planning. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. By combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

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