Setting Up Services Forecasting

This chapter provides an overview of the Services Forecasting feature and discusses how to:

• Grant security access to forecasts.

• Configure forecasts.

• Define services forecast options.

• Set up time reporting codes (TRCs) and map task categories.

• Establish forecast control.

• Refresh the forecast cache.

• Prepopulate forecasts in batch.

• Schedule forecast reminder notifications.

Understanding Services Forecasting

This section lists prerequisites and provides an overview of:

• Business units in Services Forecasting.

• Forecasting roles and security.

• Forecast configuration options.

• Project forecast options.

• TRCs and task categories.

• Forecast control.

• Forecast prepopulation.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have met these prerequisites before you use the Services Forecasting feature:

• You must implement Expenses if you want to capture actual time to compare actual utilization to forecast utilization.

• You must implement Resource Management to prepopulate forecasts with resource schedule information.

Business Units in Services Forecasting

The Services Forecasting feature uses these business units:

• General ledger (GL) business units.

  Forecast frequency, horizon, and horizon periods are defined and generated by the GL business unit.

• Project business units.

  The projects and activities to which a resource can enter forecast or actual time are controlled by project business units.

• Human resource (HR) business units.

  Each resource belongs to an HR business unit. You can analyze resource utilization based on HR business units.

The relationship between GL business units and HR business units is defined in the HR Business Unit record (BUS_UNIT_TBL_HR), which is keyed by the Business Unit field (BUSINESS_UNIT). HR business units that are associated with employees are maintained in the Job record (JOB).

Forecasting Roles and Security

To provide the Services Forecasting feature users with access to application functions that are essential to performing their job tasks, you create roles and assign them to individual user profiles. Inherent in each role is access to the application pages and processes that are required to perform the job tasks. Setting up user access requires that you understand shared data and access to PeopleSoft applications.

This section discusses:

• Permission lists.

• Row-level security.

• Other security features.

• User profiles and roles.

Permission Lists

The Services Forecasting feature comes with preconfigured permission lists that grant access to various pages. These permission lists support the functional roles that are delivered with the application. You can modify the permission lists to grant or revoke access to certain pages, web libraries, components, and other objects as necessary to support an organization's unique roles. To modify the access for a user's role, you modify a permission list that is linked to the role.

Important! If you modify a permission list, you change the access for all users who are assigned to roles that are assigned to the permission list.

The permission lists that begin with EPEX, EPRS, EPPC, and EPPG are associated with Expenses, Resource Management, Project Costing, and Program Management, respectively. Because users of these applications are likely to use the Services Forecasting feature, PeopleSoft updated the appropriate existing permission lists to include Services Forecasting pages instead of creating new permission lists.

The following table lists the delivered permission lists that provide access to the Services Forecasting feature, the purpose of each permission list in Services Forecasting, and the roles that are associated with each permission list:

Row-Level Security

PeopleSoft provides row-level security to enable individual users or permission lists to have access to a table without having access to all rows on that table. This type of security is typically applied to tables that hold sensitive data. The Services Forecasting feature uses row-level security in three ways:

• It controls the HR business units that users can access when they are analyzing utilization.

• It limits managers who are using the Review Forecasted Time page to only the GL business units to which they have been granted row-level access.

• It limits the entry of forecast time on the Forecast Time page to only the project business units that the employee is allowed to access.

Note. Row-level security does not restrict the data that is selected by batch processes.

Other Security Features

Other security mechanisms in the Services Forecasting feature include:

• The Review Forecasted Time page, which is used by managers to review employee forecasts, limits managers to the forecasts of their own employees, unless an administrator grants a manager access to another manager's resources using the Authorize Users page.

  The Authorize Users page is also used to grant a time and expense administrator access to a manager's employee forecasts on the Review Forecasted Time page to work on behalf of the manager.

• The Review Forecast by Project page, which is used by project managers to approve hours forecasted against a project, limits project managers to the projects on which they are designated as project manager.

  The designation of an individual as project manager occurs on the Resource Detail page of the Project Resource Plan component (PGM_RESOURCE_LIST). The Authorize Users page is used to grant a time and expense administrator access to a project manager's employee forecasts on the Review Forecast by Project page to work on behalf of the manager.

• The Forecast Time pages that are used for entering and submitting project and personal time can limit the projects and activities to which a user can forecast time (either the employee or the employee's manager) .

  The projects and activities that are available for selection depend on whether a project or activity team is enforced on the project. If no team enforcement is specified for the project, then any employee with access to the project's business unit can access the project. If a project team is enforced, the employee must be on the project team to have access to the project. If an activity team is enforced, the employee must be on the activity team to have access to the project and the specific activity. The level of team enforcement is applied to a project on the Project Costing Definition page of the Project General component.

User Profiles and Roles

The user must meet these requirements to access pages in the Services Forecasting feature:

• The user must have a PeopleSoft user ID.

• The employee's user ID must be associated with the employee on the Authorize Users page.

  Any user ID can be associated with any employee ID using this page. On the Authorize Users page, you enable users to act on behalf of other users when entering forecasts.

• The user's profile must be assigned at least one role.

• The role must be assigned at least one permission list that authorizes access to the desired Services Forecasting feature pages.

The Services Forecasting feature comes with several preconfigured roles based on functional tasks that are typically performed by an individual assigned to that role. Each preconfigured role comes with access to the set of pages within the application that corresponds to the functional tasks of that role. For example, employees can enter and submit their own forecasts and project managers can modify and approve forecasted hours only for projects for which they are designated as the project manager.

User profiles define individual PeopleSoft users. After you create user roles, create user IDs and link them to roles. The values for a user's page access and authorized actions, such as add, update, or review, are inherited from the associated roles.

This table lists the sample security roles that the Services Forecasting feature provides, the role descriptions, and the permission lists that must be associated with each role to use the full functionality of the Services Forecasting feature:

See Also

Enterprise PeopleTools PeopleBook: Security

Forecast Configuration Options

Before using the forecast collection tool you must configure certain forecast-related settings. You can establish different forecast configurations for each setID. Consider the following points:

• Forecast frequency determines how frequently you estimate and collect forecasts, such as weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly, or quarterly.

  For users of Expenses, this table is a guide for setting up the forecast frequency. Schedule the time reporting frequency and forecast collection frequency to coincide, as indicated in this table, so that users can report actual time and forecast time at the same time. Otherwise, users must access the system at different intervals to report actual time and forecast time.

  Expenses Time Reporting Frequencies	Recommended Forecast Frequencies
  Daily	Weekly
  Weekly	Weekly, Biweekly
  Biweekly	Biweekly
  Semimonthly	Semimonthly, Monthly, Quarterly

  Expenses time report frequencies are defined in the Expenses Definition component (BUS_UNIT_TBL_EX). Forecast frequencies are defined in the Forecast Configuration component (BUS_UNIT_OPT_FC).

• The forecast horizon defines how many periods are included in each forecast.

  For example, if you have a forecast horizon of 10 and the forecast frequency is in weeks, the forecast horizon comprises 10 weeks. The employee must report a detailed forecast for 10 weeks and a single lump number for all remaining planned hours beyond the 10-week period.

• For weekly and biweekly forecasts, the ending day of the period specifies the day of the week on which the horizon period ends so that the system can determine when to begin the next horizon period.

• You specify whether employees can create and submit forecasts for past horizon periods and whether employees can change or submit a pending forecast that was never submitted.

Project Forecast Options

You can establish forecast default settings for all new projects at the project business unit level. You can later override the settings at the individual project level. To set the forecast defaults, you can:

• Select the forecast level that determines whether you forecast hours at the project or activity level.

• Select a standard rate of employee, job code, or project role to indicate which default rate value to use to forecast costs and revenue.

  For example, you can select the standard rate that is established for the resource's job code as the default value.

• Indicate whether forecasts require project manager approval before forecasts can be used by Program Management for inclusion in cost and revenue forecasts.

  Note. Forecast data is available for utilization calculations, with or without approval.

TRCs and Task Categories

You can map nonassignment task categories in Resource Management to the TRCs that are used in the Services Forecasting feature. This mapping enables the forecast prepopulation process to load resource forecasts with appointments from their resource schedules in Resource Management. The forecast prepopulation process does not include nonassignment time for which no task category to TRC mapping exists, and it does not include project assignment time to which no project has been associated.

Time that is associated with a resource's assignment loads to the forecast without having its task category mapped to a TRC, as long as the assignment is associated with a project.

Forecast Control

The Establish Control Application Engine process (FC_CTRL_LOAD) creates the current forecast iteration for all, one, or specified GL business units. You create a forecast iteration for each business unit according to the rules identified on the Forecast Configuration page and Program Management Options page. You cannot create more than one current forecast iteration for a single GL business unit.

The Establish Control process closes the previous forecast horizon and creates a new forecast horizon beginning with the next available start date. For example, if you configure biweekly forecasts to begin on a Saturday, the Establish Control process creates a two-week forecast horizon that begins on the first Saturday following the end date of the previous forecast horizon.

This process must be completed for each forecast iteration, or you cannot enter a forecast. You can establish forecast control for the next forecast iteration anytime after the start date of the previous forecast horizon and before the start date of the next forecast horizon.

After you establish forecast control for the current forecast iteration, you can prepopulate the forecast for its forecast horizon and update, review, and submit the forecast.

Note. If you need to change the forecast frequency, such as from weekly to biweekly, you must first delete the current forecast data on the Forecast Horizon Control record (FC_CTRL_TBL) and make sure no resources are associated with the current forecast iteration. Then run the Establish Control process.

Forecast Prepopulation

This section discusses:

• Forecast prepopulation data sources.

• Forecast prepopulation without Resource Management.

• Forecast prepopulation with Resource Management.

• Loading company holidays

Forecast Prepopulation Data Sources

The Services Forecasting feature prepopulates a resource forecast from these data sources, if available:

• The prior forecast.

• Resource schedules in Resource Management.

• Other third-party project management tools.

You can prepopulate forecasts from the prior forecast or resource schedules in Resource Management using the Populate Time Application Engine process (FC_HRS_LOAD) at the beginning of each iteration for all, one, or selected GL business units for which forecast time is collected. If you select both options, the system loads data from the previous forecast horizon into the current forecast iteration for all horizon periods except for the last one, and it loads project and personal time hours in the last horizon period for resources that are managed by Resource Management.

If a resource has assignments in the Resource Management resource schedule that fall within the current forecast horizon, or, if the resource has a forecast in the prior forecast horizon, the batch process creates a forecast for the resource for use in the current iteration of forecast time collection. For resources who either do not submit a forecast or whose last submission did not contain projects, the batch process does not create a forecast.

If you run the Populate Time process at the beginning of the forecast iteration and the forecasts become out of date, you can rerun the batch process to update and override the forecasts later in the forecast time collection iteration for forecasts that are not protected or submitted.

Important! The project end date that is specified in Program Management does not control the completion date of the project in the Services Forecasting feature. If a resource's project hours load to the forecast beyond the project end date that is specified in Program Management, the completion date in the forecast is set equal to the last date on which hours load.

Forecast Prepopulation Without Resource Management

If Resource Management is not installed, the Populate Time process uses the prior period forecast (if one is available for the resource) to prepopulate the current forecast. A resource's forecast is not prepopulated if no prior period forecast exists for the resource.

The Forecast Time process adheres to these business rules when prepopulating a forecast for resources who are not established as active resources in Resource Management:

• If a resource's Employee Status field (EMPL_STATUS) on the Job record (JOB) is active on the date that the forecast time collection iteration begins, the resource is eligible for prepopulation.

  If a resource's Employee Status field on the Job record changes to a status other than Active during the forecast horizon, the Populate Time process does not load data for days beyond the date of the status change.

• The Populate Time process loads prior forecast horizon data only from the current forecast horizon begin date forward.

• Depending on the project-level configuration setting, the forecast is prepopulated at the appropriate project or activity level of detail.

  Prior forecast collection data is copied into the current forecast collection down to the daily detail, and hours are distributed at either the project or activity level. It is possible to open the forecast and make no changes at all before submitting it.

• If a resource did not have forecast hours for a project in the most recent prior forecast horizon for a project, the project is not prepopulated in the resource's next forecast.

• When populating the last period of the forecast horizon for which there is no detail available, the prepopulation process uses the number of remaining forecast hours from the prior forecast iteration minus the total number of hours in the prior forecast horizon's last horizon period.

  • Scenario A: If the remaining value is greater than zero, that value becomes the remaining forecast hours for the current forecast iteration, and the number of hours that are subtracted from the prior forecast's remaining forecast hours populates the last horizon period of the current forecast.

  • Scenario B: If the remaining value equals zero, the number of remaining forecast hours for the current forecast is set to zero, and the number of hours that are subtracted from the prior forecast's remaining forecast hours populates the last horizon period of the current forecast.

  • Scenario C: If the remaining value is less than zero, the number of remaining forecast hours for the current period is set to zero and all of the remaining forecast hours that are left from the prior period are distributed over the last horizon period in the current forecast horizon.

• If a resource's most recent prior forecast contains project or personal hours that overlap the current forecast horizon, the overlapping hours from the prior forecast carry forward into the current horizon.

Forecast Prepopulation With Resource Management

If a forecast for the most recent prior horizon exists for a resource in any status, the Populate Time process loads the current forecast with a combination of data from the prior forecast and the resource schedule in Resource Management. The prior forecast data loads into the horizon periods that overlap from the last forecast horizon, and the Resource Management schedule data loads into the newest horizon period.

If a forecast for the most recent prior horizon does not exist for a resource, the entire resource schedule is loaded from Resource Management for scheduled entries with an end date that is greater than or equal to the forecast beginning date. Historical days of an assignment that occur before the forecast beginning date do not load to the forecast.

If an assignment appeared on a resource schedule during the prior forecast horizon, and the assignment is no longer on the resource schedule in the current forecast horizon, the project that corresponds to the assignment does not automatically load to the current forecast.

The Populate Time process adheres to these additional business rules for Resource Management resources:

• If a resource is identified in Resource Management as eligible for staffing (that is, an active, eligible resource in Resource Management) at any time between the current forecast horizon begin and end dates, the resource's forecast is prepopulated with a combination of data from the resource's schedule in Resource Management and the prior forecast.

  If the resource's Employee Status field value on the Job record changes to a status other than Active during the forecast horizon, the Populate Time process does not load data for days beyond the date of that status change.

• The process loads prior forecast data such as the project (assignment) time and personal time starting with the current forecast horizon begin date.

• Prior forecast daily detail data is copied into the current forecast and, based on the project-level configuration setting, hours are distributed to either the project or activity level.

  If the data from the prior forecast is still accurate, you might not have to adjust the data that was loaded from the prior forecast before submitting the current forecast.

• The hours for any assignment in the last horizon period that has a project associated with it and exists on the resource's schedule in Resource Management load into the forecast for the last horizon period.

• The hours that are loaded to the forecast each day are based on the hours that appear for the assignment on the Resource Management resource schedule.

  Projects that forecast hours at the project level have their time loaded and distributed in the last forecast horizon period. However, for projects in which forecasting is at the activity level, the forecasted project hours from Resource Management are evenly divided across the activities that are used for forecasting in the prior forecast time collection iteration.

• If a project in a resource's forecast requires activity-level forecasting, the prior forecast data loads to the current forecast at the activity level.

  However, data from the Resource Management resource schedule loads at the project level, which requires the resource to adjust the prepopulated data across the appropriate activities in the forecast iteration.

• The forecast prepopulates the Project Time grid on the Forecast Time - Summary page with assignments.

  Any tasks on a resource schedule that are in a nonassignment (appointment) task category load to the appropriate TRC row of the Personal Time grid on the Forecast Time - Summary page. TRC hours load into the grid based on the mapping of Resource Management task categories to TRCs. Each Resource Management task category can map to zero or one TRC per setID. Resource schedule tasks that are in a task category that is not mapped to a TRC are not prepopulated in the forecast.

• If new assignments are associated with a project that does not already appear in the resource's forecast, the project is automatically added to the forecast for the resource.

• If a Resource Management assignment has an end date prior to the begin date of the current forecast iteration, the Populate Time process removes the project from the current forecast and does not populate any remaining hours to that project in the current forecast iteration, even if hours remain in the prior forecast.

• Pending assignment extensions in Resource Management are loaded by the prepopulation process regardless of whether the extension has been approved.

• When a new Resource Management assignment prepopulates a forecast, the remaining hours are calculated from the hours that are booked on the resource schedule in Resource Management.

  A resource can modify the calculated remaining hours on the forecast. In the next forecast iteration, however, the Populate Time process does not refresh the remaining hours again from booked hours in Resource Management. Instead, the remaining hours are carried forward from the prior forecast. Although the Resource Management schedule ideally reflects the same information that appears in the forecast, the hours that a resource actually works (or has left to work) may differ. The Populate Time process establishes that the resource is adjusting the estimate of remaining hours in the forecast, and it determines that the forecast is more accurate than the resource's schedule in Resource Management. Therefore, the prior forecast's remaining hours are used instead of the hours in the Resource Management resource schedule.

• The Populate Time process removes the project from the current forecast for resources who are managed in Resource Management (with a current row in the Worker Effective Date record (RS_WRKR_EFFDT) and a value of No in the Ineligible Worker field (WRKR_INELIGIBLE)) and who no longer have assignments in the prior forecast that appeared on their resource schedule.

  If the resource had hours that were booked to the project in the prior forecast horizon but the assignment does not appear in the forecast horizon because it is cancelled or completed, the project is removed from the forecast.

Loading Company Holidays

The system uses this logic to load company holidays into a new forecast:

• Company holidays from the prior forecast are copied forward into the new forecast for the overlapping horizon periods.

• The new horizon period that is covered by a forecast obtains company holidays from either the Human Resources (HR) Holiday Date record (HOLIDAY_DATE) or the PeopleSoft Financials Business Calendar record (BUS_CAL_HOLIDAY) that is associated with the resource's GL business unit.

The Populate Time process checks the resource's holiday schedule (HOLIDAY_SCHEDULE) in the Job record, finds the holidays that corresponds to the holiday schedule in the Holiday Date record, and loads company holiday hours to the horizon period. If no holidays for a holiday schedule are found in the Holiday Date record on or after the current date (indicating that the organization did not load company holidays into this HR record), the company holidays are loaded from the PeopleSoft Financials Business Calendar record that is associated with the resource's GL business unit.

Project hours that are allocated with a period that includes a company holiday are distributed to the period evenly on the days that are not company holidays. For example, if a resource normally works a five-day work week and there are 40 project hours to allocate in a week that has only four work days (due to a company holiday), the 40 hours are distributed as four 10-hour days.

Unlike a project, a resource schedule has no specific start and end dates. For this reason, personal time loads only to horizon periods that are included in the current forecast. Personal time does not load to the Remaining Effort field.

Granting Security Access to Forecasts

For purposes of reviewing, modifying and approving forecasts, you can grant security access to any employee ID to act on behalf of another user ID. This security controls a user's access to the Review Forecasted Time (supervisor review) page and Review Forecast by Project (project manager review) page.

This section discusses how to grant security access to forecasts.

Note. This section is required. You must grant security access before you can use the Services Forecasting feature.

Page Used to Grant Security Access to Forecasts

Authorizing Access to Forecasts

Access the Authorize Users page.

Access the page with the employee ID or name of the employee whose authority is shared with another user.

By authorizing users on this page to act on behalf of another user, you can give the administrator access to act on behalf of supervisors and project managers. For example, if you authorize an administrator to act on behalf of an employee who is a supervisor of a department of five resources, the administrator can access the forecasts of those five resources on the Review Forecasted Time page. Alternatively, if you authorize the administrator to act on behalf of a project manager, the administrator can access on the Review Forecasts by Project page the projects and project team members for which that project manager is specified as the project manager.

Note. Authorizing a user to act on behalf of another user with a different role does not automatically assign the authorized user to another role. If the users are associated with different roles, make sure that the authorized user has access to the required pages.

Configuring Forecasts

To configure forecasts, use the Forecast Configuration component (BUS_UNIT_OPT_FC).

Before using the forecast collection tool, you must define certain settings at the general ledger (GL) business unit level. These settings are keyed by setID so that they can be shared by multiple business units.

This section discusses how to configure forecasts.

Note. This section is required. You must configure forecast time periods before you can use the Services Forecasting feature.

Page Used to Configure Forecasts

Configuring Forecast Time Periods

Access the Forecast Configuration page.

Forecast Frequency	Select how frequently you want to estimate and collect forecasts. Options are: Weekly, Biweekly, Semimonthly, Monthly, and Quarterly. The selection determines how frequently forecasts are updated and controls how the horizon periods appear on the Forecast Time - Summary page and Forecast Time - Forecast by Period page.
Forecast Horizon	Enter the number of horizon periods to include in each forecast horizon. This determines the number of periods for which the resource must report a detailed forecast in each forecast time collection iteration. The maximum number of horizon periods is 13.
Ending Day of Period	For weekly or biweekly forecast frequencies, specify the day of the week that the horizon period ends so that the system knows when to begin the next horizon period. This field is required only for weekly or biweekly forecast frequencies and is not used for all other forecast frequencies. Note. If Expenses is installed, the Forecast Frequency and Ending Day of Period settings should match the time reporting options in Expenses. For example, if expense periods end on Saturday, horizon periods should also end on Saturday. This enables users to report actual time and forecast time on the same schedule, which makes it easier to compare and analyze the information.
Allow History Adds/Updates	Select to enable resources or their supervisors to create and submit forecasts for past forecast iterations, and to enable resources to change or submit a pending forecast that was never submitted. Note. Even if you allow history adds and updates, you cannot modify submitted forecasts from prior forecast iterations. The purpose of history adds and updates is primarily to enable users to submit prior forecasts if they forgot to submit one or want to correct one that is not yet submitted.

Defining Services Forecast Options

You can specify default settings at the project business unit level for all new projects. These settings can be overridden later at the individual project level.

This section discusses how to:

• Define Program Management forecast options.

• Override project options at the project level.

Note. This section is optional. If you want to accept the forecast option default values that appear on the Program Management Options page, you do not need to complete the tasks that are discussed in this section. You can continue to the next step in the implementation.

Pages Used to Define Services Forecast Options

Defining Business Unit Forecast Options

Access the Program Management Options page.

Forecast Capture Group Box

Overriding Forecast Options at the Project Level

Access the Program Management page.

On this page you can override for an individual project the Automatic Forecast Approval, Standard Rate, and Forecast Level default settings that are established at the project business unit level on the Program Management Options page.

See Also

Defining Program and Project Defaults

Setting Up TRCs and Mapping Task Categories

This section discusses how to:

• Set up TRCs.

• Map TRCs to task categories.

Note. If you are using Resource Management with the Services Forecasting feature, you must map the task categories that are used in Resource Management to the TRCs used in the Services Forecasting feature for personal or policy time that is not associated with projects and activities.

Pages Used to Set Up TRCs and Map Task Categories

Setting Up TRCs

Access the Time Reporting Code page.

Note. You must set up TRCs if you want to forecast personal time. TRCs are not used to forecast project time.

Enter a time reporting code and description. Indicate whether it is used for business holidays.

Important! Select only one TRC to use for business holidays.

See Also

Setting Up Time Reporting Codes

Mapping TRCs to Task Categories

Access the Task Categories page.

Note. This section is optional. If you are not using Resource Management to prepopulate forecasts, you do not need to complete the tasks that are discussed in this section.

Use this page to map task categories in Resource Management to the TRCs that are used in the Services Forecasting feature if you are using Resource Management to prepopulate forecasts.

Important! You must configure forecast time periods before you map task categories to TRCs.

See Also

Defining Task Categories and Mapping to TRCs

Establishing Forecast Control

To establish forecast control, use the Run Forecast Control component (RUN_FC_CNTL).

This section discusses how to run the Establish Control Application Engine process (FC_CTRL_LOAD).

Important! This section is required. You must complete the Establish Control process every time that you want to create a current forecast iteration by either running it manually or scheduling it by using the Process Scheduler. Otherwise, you cannot enter a forecast.

Page Used to Establish Forecast Control

Establishing Forecast Control for Business Units

Access the Establish Control page.

Use this page to run the Establish Control process to create the current forecast iteration. You can create a recurring instance of this process that runs at an interval that corresponds to your for the frequency, which eliminates the need to run this process manually each time that you want to establish a new forecast iteration. For example, if all business units submit monthly forecasts, schedule the process to run monthly to create a new forecast iteration automatically for all business units each month. You can also group business units by time zone to schedule the process to run at a time of day that is sensible for the majority of users in a region.

Note. Group the Establish Control process with the Administer Cache Application Engine process (FC_CACHE_AD) in the same job and schedule the Administer Cache process to occur immediately following the completion of the Establish Control process.

See Also

Enterprise PeopleTools PeopleBook: PeopleSoft Process Scheduler

Refreshing the Forecast Cache

To refresh the forecast cache, use the Run Forecast Cache Administration component (RUN_FC_CACHE_AD).

This section discusses how to run the Administer Cache process to refresh forecast cache tables.

Note. This section is required. You must complete the Administer Cache process, by either running it manually or scheduling it by using the Process Scheduler, every time the Establish Control process completes.

Page Used to Refresh the Forecast Cache

Refreshing Forecast Cache Tables

Access the Administer Cache page.

The Administer Cache process refreshes cache tables to optimize performance. Cache tables eliminate the amount of logic that the application must perform each time that it needs to identify the resources reporting to a supervisor. The Forecast Supervisor List cache table (FC_SUPR_RVW_LST) stores a list of supervisors and related forecast horizons that have associated employees. The Forecast Supervisor/Employee List cache table (FC_EE_FCST_LST) stores a list of supervisors and their current employees' job information as of the begin date of a specific forecast horizon.

Run the Administer Cache process at least once after every completion of the Establish Control process, and more frequently if supervisor changes occur frequently in the organization.

Prepopulating Forecasts in Batch

To prepopulate forecasts in batch, use these components:

• Run Prepopulate Forecast Time component (RUN_FC_TIME).

• Load Third Party Time component (RUN_PC_PC_TO_FC).

This section discusses how to:

• Prepopulate forecasts using prior forecasts or resource schedules.

• Load other third-party data.

Note. This section is optional. If you are not prepopulating forecasts, you do not need to complete the tasks that are discussed in this section.

Pages Used to Prepopulate Forecasts in Batch

Prepopulating Forecasts Using Prior Forecasts or Resource Schedules

Access the Populate Time page.

Select All	Select this option to prepopulate forecast hours for all GL business units.
Load From Prior Forecast and Load Resource Management Data	The options are: Select only Load From Prior Forecast for the Populate Time Application Engine process (FC_HRS_LOAD) to load data from the previous forecast horizon into the current forecast iteration for all horizon periods except the last one. The process calculates the hours for the last period of the forecast horizon as the number of remaining forecast hours from the prior forecast iteration minus the total number of hours in the prior forecast horizon's last horizon period. Select only Load Resource Management Data for the Populate Time process to load project and personal time hours in all horizon periods for resources that are managed by Resource Management. Select both options for the process to load data from the previous forecast horizon into the current forecast iteration for all horizon periods except the last one, and load project and personal time hours in the last horizon period for resources that are managed by Resource Management. Select both options to take full advantage of the system's ability to prepopulate forecasts using prior forecasts and schedule data from Resource Management.
GL Business Unit (general ledger business unit)	Specify one or more business units for which you want to prepopulate forecast hours. This field is available if you did not enable the Select All option.
Run	Click Run for the Populate Time Application Engine process to populate the Forecast Time - Summary page, by resource, for the forecast horizon and rules that are defined on the Forecast Configuration and Program Management Options pages.

Important! Run the Populate Time process only after completion of the Establish Control and Administer Cache processes. Schedule all three processes in a single run control in this order: 1. Establish Control, 2. Administer Cache, and 3. Populate Time.

Loading Other Third-Party Data

Access the Load Third Party Time page.

Click Run for the Load Third-Party Data Application Engine process (PC_PC_TO_FC) to load data from a third-party project management tool after that data is loaded into the forecast staging table.

Scheduling Forecast Reminder Notifications

To schedule forecast reminder notifications, use the Run Forecast Reminder component (RUN_FC_REMINDER).

In the Services Forecasting feature, you can identify employees who have not submitted the required forecasts and send them email reminders.

This section discusses how to schedule forecast reminder notifications.

Note. This section is optional. If you are not using forecast reminder options, you do not need to complete the tasks that are discussed in this section.

Page Used to Schedule Forecast Reminder Notifications

Sending Forecast Reminders by Email

Access the Email Reminder page.

On this page, you can schedule the Email Reminder Application Engine process (FC_REMINDER) to send an email reminder to each resource in the specified GL business units who has not submitted a forecast for the current forecast iteration as of the current Run Date and Run Time on the Process Scheduler Request page.

Select all GL business units or specify them individually. Click Run to initiate or schedule the process by using the PeopleSoft Process Scheduler.

Note. The Review Forecasted Time page also includes an ad hoc email notification feature so that a reviewing manager can send a reminder or a note to the manager's own resources.

See Also

Enterprise PeopleTools PeopleBook: PeopleSoft Process Scheduler