The last date for which we have data is May 2017. You need dates and their corresponding numbers for all the forecasting functions. The sheet has two columns of monthly data: dates and units sold.
This type of data doesn’t have a cycle, which means the sales don’t depend on the time of year. The workbook has two tabs: straight line and seasonality. If you'd like to follow along, download this zip file and extract the workbook from it:
The Forecast Sheet chart isn’t available on the Mac edition of 2016, but you can still create a regular chart. Once you have the results, you can create a chart in the Windows version that shows the forecasts and expected margins of error. These work the same in both the Windows and Mac versions of Excel 2016. The older FORECAST function still exists for compatibility with worksheets created in older versions, but if you’re creating a new sheet, you’ll want to use one of these…įORECAST.LINEAR: creates a straight-line forecastįORECAST.ETS: estimates a trend using seasonalityį: shows the length of a seasonal cycleį: the confidence interval of the estimateį: calculates 8 statistical algorithms Excel 2016 has a handful of new functions to help you forecast numbers – typically sales data – more accurately than before.
