CB Predictor is the latest addition to the Crystal Ball^® suite of world-class decision-support tools. With its patent-pending technology, CB Predictor is the first, and only, forecasting tool designed to work seamlessly with risk analysis and optimization technology.

With CB Predictor, available as part of Crystal Ball Professional Edition, future performance can be accurately predicted from historical data.

What is time-series forecasting?

Time-series forecasting (TSF) is a collection of methods used to predict future outcomes based upon historical values. These historic values, often referred to as a "time-series" data, are spaced equally over time and can represent anything from monthly sales data to daily electricity consumption to hourly call volumes.

> See our overview page for more information on TSF
> See the One-Minute Spotlight on CB Predictor: Time-series forecasting

How does CB Predictor work?

Time-series forecasting assumes that your time-series data is a combination of a pattern and some random error. By understanding the pattern's trend, its long-term increase or decrease, and its seasonality, the pattern can be separated from the error and extrapolated into the future.

Once you place your time-series data into Excel, you can turn on CB Predictor to begin your analysis. When the CB Predictor wizard starts, it automatically finds and interprets the data format.

From there, you simply follow the ten-step process and answer the questions for each step. At any time during the analysis, you can view the data or run a forecast.

CB Predictor analyzes the trend, seasonality, and error in your time-series data using one of eight different forecasting methods. It ranks all the methods according to how closely they fit your data and automatically selects the best one to use.

After previewing the results graphically, you can have the forecasted values placed into your spreadsheet where you can use them in subsequent calculations and formulas.

How does this product integrate with Crystal Ball?

With CB Predictor, you can automatically generate Crystal Ball assumptions from your time-series forecasts.

Crystal Ball users can immediately use the assumptions CB Predictor creates in your spreadsheet model and move right to optimization with OptQuest for Crystal Ball!

Who is CB Predictor for?

CB Predictor has been developed for individuals and organizations that need to increase the accuracy of their forecasts and have historical information to aid them in this process.

CB Predictor is the perfect forecasting tool - whether you want to forecast product demand for inventory control, natural gas consumption for the upcoming winter or next year's sales performance. CB Predictor provides the clearest picture of what's to come.

"CB Predictor lets novice statisticians make predictions that are better than what they could do without the aid of statistics--but at the same time, it's powerful and sophisticated enough to allow more expert users to tweak the methods and assumptions."
-- INFORMATION WEEK, 3/15/99

FEATURE	BENEFIT
Wizard-driven Process	Does: Automatically selects location of your data and guides you through the forecasting process
	Benefits: Generates reliable forecasts in seconds
Forecasting Techniques	Does: Single & Double Moving Average, Single & Double Exponential Smoothing, Additive and Multiplicative Decomposition, Holt-Winters' Seasonal, and Holt-Winters' Multiplicative Smoothing
	Benefits: Easy and accurate predictions of historical data with trend or seasonality
Autocorrelation View	Does: Visually and numerically identifies seasonal data
	Benefits: Eliminates guesswork in determining seasonality
Iterative & Forward Stepwise Regression	Does: Automatically builds your regression equation using only the most significant independent variables
	Benefits: Removes the guesswork about which variables to include in a regression equation
HyperCasting™	Does: One-step creation of a regression equation and forecasting of the independent and dependent variables
	Benefits: Saves time and effort when building regression models
Probabilistic Output	Does: Automatically determines confidence intervals for forecasts and places results back into the spreadsheet as Crystal Ball assumptions
	Benefits: Includes uncertainty from your time-series forecasts as part of broader risk analysis
Reporting and Charting	Does: Customizable reporting engine displays statistics, charts, reports, and PivotTables for all results
	Benefits: Easy presentation and communication with others

CB Predictor Developer Kit adds flexibility to your applications

The CB Predictor Developer Kit brings complete automation and control to time-series forecasting from within a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) program or any other language outside of Excel that supports OLE 2 automation. The Kit allows developers to customize functionality, tailoring it to their users' needs. With this kit, you can:

Create turnkey applications that integrate the software into your workflow
Automatically run forecasts on multiple sets of data
Integrate Crystal Ball and CB Predictor with other software tools
Build custom reports and automate post-forecasting analysis

This Developer Kit is available with Crystal Ball Professional Edition.

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