User Input for forecast model

[Anonymous]

I've a Requirement to redesign Forecasting Tool  which is currently on EXCEL Macros and Python and I'm resposnsible for Evaluating whether Power BI is capable of fullfilling the Requirements.

Basically the tool do the following things

1. Get Data from Various ERP systems on Sales and Inventory - I know this can be done in Power BI or use SSIS to stage the data and use Power BI on top of it.

2. Run a Python Script to forecast for Future Months (24 Months forward) - This can be done to in POWER BI.

3. The results of Python will be shown as a Table in Excel. And this Forecast is not only for sales and Inventory , I've 8 other Measures that have this Forecasting.

4. <<Need Help Here>> This is the Interesting part, Users can now Change the Forecast in the Excel table based on thier assesment of the demand and various other real time parameter and update the values in the table and see the Projections in the graph Real Time. Is this possible in Power BI. Looking for Some advice here? I know we can use parameters for User Input, But displaying an array of parameters (24 Months * 10 Measures ) will not look good or will be tedious for user to update in Power BI. 

5. Once the forecast is corrected its updated back to SQL Server database

Hope I've explained well,

Thanks

Sriram

[v-piga-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Have you solved your problem?

If you have solved, please always accept the replies making sense as solution to your question so that people who may have the same question can get the solution directly.

If you still need help, please feel free to ask.

Best Regards,

Cherry

[Anonymous]

Hi @v-piga-msft !

I feel like I may be seeking a similar solution and wonder if I can provide an example that you can speak to?

To keep it simple, I am trying to recreate a sales projection file in PowerBI which allows for user input of projected sales to then be compared to last year actual case sales (sourced from an ERP database) and previously set current year case goals (static values loaded from an Excel or CSV file).

The hope is to allow users to input a projected value for a certain brand in a certain month, and have dynamic measures such as "Projection vs LY %Chg" and "Projection vs Goal %Chg". Users would be inputting projection values for dozens of Brands and for each of 12 months, so my impression is that parameters are not flexible enough to tackle this especially given users would likely tinker with projections depending on the resulting dynamic measures.

Apologies for the formatting (first post) but hopefully the below is a decent visual example. The bolded values in the projection column are what a user would manually input. The "vs" columns would dynamically calculate based off of the projection value:

	May 2019	May 2019	May 2019	May 2019	May 2019	June 2019	June 2019	June 2019	June 2019	June 2019
Brand	Projection	LY	Projection vs LY	Goal	Projection vs Goal	Projection	LY	Projection vs LY	Goal	Projection vs Goal
Brand A	110	88	25%	100	10%	152	145	5%	150	1%
Brand B	20	29	-31%	35	-43%	10	25	-60%	15	-33%
Brand C	55	60	-8%	50	10%	60	53	13%	70	-14%
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...

Is there any kind of similar solution in PowerBI that could mimic the flexiblity of cell-based manual inputs?

Thank you for any assistance!

-Rob

[v-piga-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

---

4. <<Need Help Here>> This is the Interesting part, Users can now Change the Forecast in the Excel table based on thier assesment of the demand and various other real time parameter and update the values in the table and see the Projections in the graph Real Time. Is this possible in Power BI. Looking for Some advice here? I know we can use parameters for User Input, But displaying an array of parameters (24 Months * 10 Measures ) will not look good or will be tedious for user to update in Power BI. 

5. Once the forecast is corrected its updated back to SQL Server database

---

Sorry for the delay!

I still have a little confused about your scenario.

Do you want to filter the data when user enter the parameter in Power BI? If it is, you could have a reference of this blog about how to use Parameters in Power BI.

If not, please describe your requirement with an example so that we could understand it better.

In addition, if you change the data model in power bi, I'm afraid that it will not update to SQL Server database.

Best  Regards,

Cherry