Hierarchical Forecasting (Pluggable) Settings

You can change the following settings in the Options pane of the pipeline. For more information, see Options Pane.

Task Settings

Set the forecast task

Specify the task to run for this modeling node. These tasks must be run sequentially. For example, the Diagnose task can be run independently, but the Fit task requires that you run the Diagnose task first.

Choose from one of the following tasks:

  • Diagnose : performs model selection, estimates parameters of the selected model, and produces forecasts. This is the default.
  • Fit : estimates parameters for the models that you select and then forecasts. No model selection is performed. You must run the Diagnose task successfully before running the Fit task.
  • Forecast : forecasts using model parameter estimates. You must run the Diagnose task successfully before running the Forecast task. After the Diagnose task has been run, if any settings are changed, the Diagnose task must be run again before running the Forecast task.
  • Select : performs model selection from the models that you select, estimates parameters of the selected model, and produces forecasts. You must run the Diagnose task successfully before running the Select task.
  • Update : estimates parameters from the models that you select and then forecasts. No model selection is performed. Update differs from Fit in that the estimated parameters are used as starting values in the estimation. You must run the Diagnose task successfully before running the Update task. After the Diagnose task has been run, if any settings are changed, the Diagnose task must be run again before running the Update task.

Diagnostics Settings

Minimum number of observations required for a non-mean model

Specify a minimum value that a time seriesan aggregation of transactional data into specified time intervals and sorted according to unique combinations of the default attributes (BY variables) must meet to be fit using the models in the selection list. Time series that do not meet this minimum value are forecasta numerical prediction of a future value for a specified time period for each unique combination of BY variable values as the mean of the observations in the series. This value must be greater than or equal to one. The default value is 2.

Minimum number of observations required for a trend model

Specify that a trend model is not fitted to any series with fewer nonmissing observations than the value specified. The value must be an integer that is greater than or equal to 1. The default value is 2. Trend models are not included for any series with fewer nonmissing observations than this value.

Incorporation of a trend is checked only for smoothing, UCM, and ARIMA models. For the smoothing case, only simple smoothing is not a trend model. For UCM, the absence of a slope component qualifies it as not a trend model. For ARIMA, there must be no differencing of the dependent variable for it to be considered as not a trend model.

Minimum number of seasons required for a seasonal model

Seasonal models are not included for any series with fewer nonmissing observations than this value, multiplied by the seasonal length. Specify an integer greater than or equal to one.

Model Generation Settings

For best results, make sure at least two of these models are selected. If none of the models are selected, an ESM model (ESM BEST) is used for all time series.

Include ESM models

Turn this setting on to include an exponential smoothing model (ESM) for diagnosis.

Include ARIMAX models

Turn this setting on to include an ARIMAX model for diagnosis.

Include IDM models

Turn this setting on to include an intermittent demand model (IDM) for diagnosis.

  • Intermittency test — This section is available when Include IDM models is enabled.
    • Sensitivity level for intermittency test — Specify an integer greater than one. This setting is used to determine whether a time series is intermittent. If the demand interval is equal to or greater than this number, then the series is assumed to be intermittent.
Include UCM models

Turn this setting on to include a UCM model for diagnosis.

Include combined models

Select Yes if you want to combine the selected models for diagnosis.

Model Selection Settings

Number of data points used in the holdout sample

Enter a positive integer to be used as the size of the holdout samplethe number of periods of the most recent data that should be excluded from the parameter estimation. The holdout sample can be used to evaluate the forecasting performance of a candidate model.. The actual holdout sample is the minimum between this value and the Percentage of data points used in the holdout sample . The default value is zero, which means no holdout sample is used.

Percentage of data points used in the holdout sample

Enter a value between 0 and 100 to specify the percentage of the sample that is used for the holdout sample. The actual holdout sample is the minimum between this value and the Number of data points used in the holdout sample . This option is displayed only if Number of data points used in the holdout sample is greater than zero.

Model selection criterion

Choose the statistics of fit to use for selecting the best model in this modeling node. For descriptions for each option, see Descriptions of Model Selection Criteria.

Reconciliation Settings

Setting the reconciliation level overrides the default setting selected when assigning the BY variable roles for the project on the Data tab. For more information, see Assigning the Default Attributes.

Reconciliation level

The reconciliation level is specified for this node by selecting a BY variable from the hierarchy. Consider the order of the default attributes (BY variables) defined on the Data tab. Select a variable to determine the type of reconciliation methodthe method that specifies the level in the hierarchy where the process of reconciliation starts. The following reconciliation methods are available: bottom-up method, middle-out method, and top-down method. .

By default, the reconciliation level set on the Data tab for the BY variables is used.

For a description of top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up reconciliation methods, see Understanding Hierarchy Reconciliation.

Output Tables

The following tables are automatically generated when running this modeling node. The tables can be saved to another caslib by using the Save Data Node.

The following optional tables can be selected for generation. Select any tables that you want generated when this node is run. After the node is run, the tables can be saved using the Save Data Node.

Last updated: March 16, 2026