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How Does Demand Forecasting Work?
How Does Demand Forecasting Work?

An explanation of the Demand Forecasting process and how Rotageek builds you an optimum rota.

Tori avatar
Written by Tori
Updated over a week ago

If your company is using Autoscheduler, you might be wondering how Rotageek forecasts the demand levels that form the basis of your schedule.

Rotageek takes past data from your company to predict what future demand in your store or branch will look like. Depending on what kind of business you work for these will be a diverse range of datasets. For example, Retailers might use past transactions and customer footfall data.

The clever folk in our Data Science Team then translate that future demand forecast into the number of team members you need working in a location at any one time. This is in intervals of 15 minutes. The Autoscheduler will then produce an optimum rota for your business.


What is an 'optimum' rota?

An optimum rota can mean something different to each of our clients. Your business can use Rotageek to ensure staff schedules are optimised to meet a variety of operational objectives.

These objectives might include ensuring staff contracted hours are met, matching customer demand as closely as possible, staffing to a tight budget, or guaranteeing minimum service levels within your location. Whatever your operational targets, Rotageek can help you meet them.


Understanding the Intra-Day Demand graph in the Scheduler:

In the scheduler your forecasted demand for the day is represented by a line, and your scheduled staffing levels by the coloured bars which relate to each specific task.

As we've already discussed the autoscheduler creates the ideal rota for your business depending on what you have chosen to optimise it for.

In addition to customer demand and your operational objectives, it also factors in workforce constraints such as staff leave, staff working patterns and preferences, and local labour regulation such as maximum shift length and mandatory breaks.

The autoscheduler then produces the best possible schedule for your business ensuring that all these competing demands and considerations are taken into account.


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