When comparing Farsight Demand Forecasting with Microsoft Demand Planning, there are some major differences in flexibility, integration, and functional scope. This page lists the key features and highlights the major differences between these products to help companies choose the right Demand Planning tool for their Supply Chain needs.
Both Farsight Demand Forecasting and Microsoft Demand Planning can be used with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.
However, Microsoft Demand Planning is a cloud-based tool developed by Microsoft for use with any ERP system, while Farsight Demand Forecasting is a fully integrated add-on for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management that provides additional functionality that can be critical for successful forecasting in many organisations.
Farsight Demand Forecasting |
Microsoft Demand Planning |
|
|---|---|---|
| Customer Grouping | ||
| Customer grouping flexibility | Customers can be grouped using one or two of sixteen standard customer groups; individual customers can be grouped separately. This is important for limiting the volume of forecast generated. |
Customers can be grouped by Customer group and Segment only, or not grouped at all.
Separate transformation profiles are required to group different customers differently. |
| Forecast Generation | ||
| Regeneration control | Forecasts can be regenerated for selected item groups or individual items only. | Forecasts can only be regenerated for all items in a series. |
| Forecast dimension control | Forecasts can be generated with fewer product or storage dimensions than those required by Master Planning. | Forecasts must be generated with the same product and storage dimensions as those on the demand series used to generate them otherwise invalid forecasts can be created when they are exported to D365SCM. |
| Multiple forecasting formulas per generation run | Different formulas can be used for different item/dimensions/customer group combinations in a single generation run. | All forecasts in a series are generated using the same forecasting model, so the models can’t be different for different items. |
| Available forecast models | Forecasts can be generated using 5 ‘naïve’ forecasting formulas and a ‘Best fit’ formula (which uses ETS models), as well as all the models provided by Demand Planning. | Forecasts can be generated using 5 different forecasting ‘models’ (ARIMA, ETS, Prophet, Machine Learning and a ‘Best fit’ model). |
| Manual Forecast Entry & Update | ||
| Manual forecast entry | New forecasts can be manually entered using the same function that’s used to manually adjust generated forecasts. | New sets of forecasts can’t be manually created and added to a series of generated forecasts – they must be entered separately directly in D365SCM. |
| Bulk updates | Forecasts can be manually mass-updated together. | Forecasts must be individually updated. |
| Forecast adjustments | Adjustments made to forecasts are displayed separately and are audit-tracked. | Adjusted forecasts can be highlighted. |
| Notes on forecasts | Unlimited notes can be recorded against a single forecast; a single note can be recorded against multiple forecasts. | A note can be recorded against a single forecast only. |
| Offline maintenance of forecasts | Forecasts can be manually updated using offline spreadsheets exported and imported by Demand Forecasting (not using D365 Data Management) | - |
| Forecast Display & Filtering | ||
| Forecast display filters | The display of forecasts can be filtered by 3 item & customer groups, any category node in a product category hierarchy, 2 item filters and by 2 forecast accuracy measurements (MAPE & Tracking signal). | Forecasts can only be filtered using the data fields on the forecasts. |
| Forecast model transparency | Details of the forecast models used to generate each set of forecasts are displayed when viewing the forecasts | No information is displayed about the forecasting model and associated parameters used to generate the forecasts when viewing them. |
| Forecast Time Periods | ||
| Automatic time period splitting of forecasts | Forecasts can be automatically split over smaller time periods (e.g. months to weeks) when they are passed to Master Planning. | Forecasts can’t be automatically split into smaller time periods when they are exported to D365SCM. |
| Forecast consumption in Master Planning/Planning Optimization | ||
| Forecast consumption in D365SCM Planning | All current month forecasts generated by Farsight can be consumed by any sales transactions requested to be shipped in the month. | Forecasts generated by Demand Planning that are dated in the past are ignored by D365SCM Planning, so cannot be consumed by all sales transactions requested to be shipped in the current month. |
| New Items & Supersessions | ||
| Forecasts for new Items | Forecasts for new items can be generated from demand history automatically copied from existing items. | – |
| Item supersessions | Item supersessions can automatically stop forecasts being generated for superseded items from a specified date. | – |
| External Events & Safety Stock | ||
| External events | External events can be created that impact future forecasts for multiple items. | – |
| Safety stock Calculations | Minimum & Maximum quantities used by D365SCM Master Planning/Planning Optimization can be calculated based on forecast accuracy. | – |
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