The first is its ability to organize data into hierarchies and reconcile the forecasts in various ways. For example, total sales could be broken down into product lines, products and SKUs. If the user adjusts forecasts judgmentally at any level, the entire hierarchy will be adjusted. The second unique feature is event modeling. Event models extend exponential smoothing by providing adjustments for special events like promotions, strikes or other irregular occurrences.
Event models are easy to build and adaptable to a wide variety of situations.
There are a couple of points made in the review which we wish to clarify. The reviewer correctly states that if you wish to manually adjust forecasts you must limit your data files to 1,024 variables or less. It should be noted, however, that the program allows you to group data files together into a script which will forecast all of the data files listed. Thus, if your script included 10 data files, each containing 1,000 variables, you could generate the forecasts, adjust the results and switch between the different data files with a click of the mouse. The second point we wish to clarify concerns our forecasting seminars.