Preparing Data

Data preparation involves creating monthly/quarterly forecasts, importing historical GL General Ledger, statistics, and payroll data to summarize that data to the level necessary for Axiom Rolling Forecasting's calculations.

At a high level, the process is as follows:

1. Set up fiscal period defaults – Includes such settings as the fiscal year and month for the upcoming planning cycle, the number of workdays and FTE hours in the year; the planning type (monthly or quarterly); and plan file tab display options such as forecast tab visibility and the span of years to display. See the following topics:
   1. Set the fiscal year and period
   2. Configure system settings
   3. Configure planning
2. Import historical data – Axiom Rolling Forecasting generates monthly and quarterly forecasts based on historical data acquired from your general ledger (GL). By default, the system imports this data to the DEPT, ACCT, and INITIATIVEID dimension tables within the Axiom database. For more information, see Working with Dimensions.
3. Configure driver files – Configure the driver files for initial and subsequent Axiom Rolling Forecasting processes. For more information, see Configuring drivers.
4. Summarize imported data – Map department and account-level data to higher-level groups using summary codes called RFCode (for accounts), RFGroup (for departments), and RFID (for initiatives). For more information, see Summarize data.
5. Update Rolling Forecasting plan files – After importing and summarizing historical data, update the plan files for your forecasts. For more information, see Working with Plan Files.