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Annualizing Data - Creating a calculated field

Posted October 24th, 2008 by Kim DiTrolio
in Calculations

I see someone asked about this a few months ago, but hoping that not seeing a response doesn't mean that there isn't one.
Our businesses are looking to use our current/historical data to create an annualized field for demand & inventory management planning. Has anyone been able to do this, or can you suggest any other way to forecast (besides using historical trends). Thanks!

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On October 24th, 2008 Sandy Wu said:

Hi Kim,

I'm not exactly sure if I understand your question but when I am looking to forecast a bit using Tableau I do a trick where I extend the date axis into a time in the future and then turn on trend lines. If my trends are fairly significant I can get a general idea of how my sales will be in the future if things continued.

It's not very sophisticated, but it works for getting a general idea.

--SW

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On October 24th, 2008 Erin Easter said:

Hi Kim,

Can you be more specific about the type of analysis you are looking to do? Maybe some more specific questions you are trying answer? I'm not sure what you mean by an annualized field and the type of forecast you want that is not based on historical trends.

Thanks,
Erin

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On October 24th, 2008 Kim DiTrolio said:

Thanks SW, but how do you extend the data axis? I'm using a dataset created on a SQL server. Any ideas are appreciated!

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On October 24th, 2008 Kim DiTrolio said:

Hi Erin -
As part of our demand & inventory management planning, the businesses have been asked to closely watch demand and inventory levels to help manage
cash and earnings.
I have been asked to create a "velocity" metric using the last 3 months data annualized to the rolling 12 month sales. They will look at the recent trend and
compare it to the 12 month trend.
Further, they want to see each value in a side by side bar graph for each segment.Any ideas?? thanks in advance for your help!
Kim

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On October 27th, 2008 Sandy Wu said:

You can extend the date axis by right-clicking the axis and choosing Edit Axis. Then you can set a manual range using the slider on the General tab.

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On October 27th, 2008 Will Dennis (not verified) said:

You could also create two calculated measures based upon rolling 3 and 12 month sales volume.

For Example:
Latest 3 months
Formula:
IF DATEDIFF('month',[date],today()) <= 3
THEN
[Sales]
ELSE 0
END

Latest 12 months
Formula:
IF DATEDIFF('month',[date],today()) <= 12
THEN
[Sales]
ELSE 0
END

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On October 28th, 2008 Kim DiTrolio said:

Will -
Thanks so much. That may be exactly what this business needs. Appreciate you writing out the calculation - I wasn't sure how it should look.
Thanks again.
Kim

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