What is a Forecast Override?

A Forecast Override event is primarily designed to enable top-down sales target setting within the demand planning process. Rather than relying solely on bottom-up statistical forecasts, planners can directly input strategic demand targets — such as monthly sales goals for a product line, customer segment, or channel — based on business priorities, commercial strategy, or executive direction.

Users can define these targets at any level of aggregation — national, regional, customer group, or product family — and SIMCEL will automatically disaggregate the override down to the transaction level, which is the most granular forecastable unit in the system (typically product × customer × week).

This atomization process relies on historical patterns of trend, seasonality, and distribution behavior to ensure the override is spread intelligently across lower levels, preserving realistic demand dynamics and operational feasibility.

The result: teams can enforce top-down sales intent while maintaining coherence with statistical models and historical performance — enabling a truly integrated and flexible demand planning workflow.

How to Create a Forecast Override Event

Step 1 — Create a New Forecast Override Event

Navigate to the Events module

Create a new event of type Forecast Override

Set:

Event name (e.g., Pharmacity July Campaign)

Version (optional)

Period of the override

Step 2 — Select the Target Segment

Select the segment you want to affect (e.g., "Pharmacy Chain" from the customer segmentation tree)

Enter the value to override (either absolute units or monetary amount)

Step 3 — Submit the Event

Once configured, click Submit to finalize the override event.

Your new event will now be available for assignment to a scenario.

Step 4 — Apply the Event to a Scenario

Open the relevant Scenario & click Edit

In the Event section, select and assign the new Forecast Override event

After a few seconds, SIMCEL will recompute the demand forecast, incorporating the override logic.