Recurrency’s integrated forecasting and planning workflow helps optimize inventory management by using real-time data, smart recommendations, and flexible action tools. This guide outlines how to move from forecasting through planning, and finally taking action with Recurrency's recommendations to ensure your inventory is aligned with demand.
Forecasting Workflow in Recurrency
The first step in replenishment recommendations in with Recurrency is demand forecasting. The Forecasting page in Recurrency doesn't require any action from users. It's designed to display the predictions generated by Recurrency’s machine learning model, which analyzes historical sales data, seasonality, and market trends to forecast future demand for each item. These forecasts are used as the basis for planning recommendations.
Planning and Managing Inventory
With forecasting data in hand, Recurrency's planning tools allow you to adjust your inventory settings to match projected demand. This involves setting Min/Max levels, updating Safety Stock, and managing Lead Times for your items.
Key Steps in the Planning Process:
Navigate to the Planning Tab: The Planning tab in the Demand Planning module provides an overview of all stockable item-location pairs, their replenishment recommendations, and key data required to seamlessly review items.
Review Planning Recommendations: Recurrency generates recommendations for Min/Max levels using Smart Lead Times, and Safety Stock, and other inputs - all based on dynamic forecasting. The system uses factors such as demand patterns, supplier lead times, and organizational cost settings to tailor recommendations for each item.
Item Status Overview
💡 Item Status filters bring items that require attention to your immediate view, and provides flexibility to exclude any that you do not want to focus on at this time.
In Recurrency Planning, there are three types of item statuses: OK, Needs Review, and Excluded.
OK | Items that do not require immediate attention as there is no meaningful deviation between Recurrency recommendations and Current Min/Max or Order Point values. |
Needs Review | Assigned to items when the Recurrency recommendation deviates from your current Order Point or Min/Max values. |
Excluded | Used when you want to keep certain items out of the "Needs Review" category. |
Understanding "Needs Review" Status
Recurrency's Min/Max value recommendations play a crucial role in optimizing where your time is spent when inventory planning. To do this, we dynamically calculate these recommendations, and alert you when a change or review is required.
When Recurrency generates Min/Max recommendations, we compare these recommendations to your current Min/Max values being used for Purchasing processes. Items will be flagged for review when there are significant changes in demand or lead times, helping you maintain proactive inventory management. Recurrency employs the following default review thresholds:
Default Review Threshold: This specifies the percentage change in demand required to trigger a review for items that haven’t been assessed in the past month, set at a default of 5%.
Review Threshold for Recently Reviewed Items: This threshold applies to items that have been reviewed within the last month, requiring a 30% change in demand to flag them for reassessment.
Admins have the ability to manage these thresholds within the Settings panel, allowing for customized oversight based on your organization’s specific needs.
Managing "Needs Review" Items
The "Needs Review" status is an alert that suggests the need to take a closer look at these items, as they may benefit from Min/Max adjustments. As your business environment evolves and factors like lead time and demand change, our Dynamic Min/Max recommendations adapt accordingly.
You can easily use the filters in the Planning module to narrow down your view to items flagged as "Needs Review". This allows you to concentrate your efforts on items that may need immediate action.
When the Min/Max values are updated to match the Recurrency recommendations, the "Needs Review" label is automatically removed.
Excluding Items from Needs Review
In certain cases, you may decide to exclude specific items from being flagged as "Needs Review." This can be done at the item level, or in bulk.
💡 When you exclude an item, the item in question will continue to be forecasted by Recurrency, and we will continue to make recommendations as needed. What we won't do is mark the item as "Needs Review", to ensure we're not cluttering your view with items you have chosen not to focus on temporarily.
It's important to note that exclusions can be reversed at any time, providing you with the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. To include an item again, select the "Include" action and use the methods above - individual and bulk exclusions - to ensure the item once again appears in the general workflow.
By providing the "Needs Review" status and the ability to exclude items from it, Recurrency empowers you to maintain precise control over your inventory management. This feature ensures that you can focus your efforts where they matter most and adapt to evolving supply chain dynamics effectively.
You can also snooze recommendations for specific periods of time. Learn more here.
Actioning on Recommendations: Individual & Bulk Updates
You can take action on Recurrency’s recommendations in two ways: either individually or in bulk, using filters to streamline your workflow. For instance, you can filter by supplier and adjust lead times for all item-location pairs under that supplier, based on updated shipping information - or you can bulk accept replenishment recommendations for items for Very High predictability.
Individual Updates
You can take one-off actions via:
Actions Menu: Click on an item’s Actions menu to manually update its Min/Max, Safety Stock, or Lead Time settings. You can accept Recurrency’s recommendations, input custom values, or temporarily override settings like Lead Time or Safety Stock based on specific circumstances.
Contextual Side Panel: Access detailed inputs via the contextual side panel. At the top, you’ll find key inputs like Lead Times, Safety Stock, and Order Cycle, while below, current and recommended replenishment values are displayed. Each value has an edit icon that opens a modal, letting you view historical changes through the audit log. From there, you can accept recommendations, make overrides, or revert to previous settings as needed.
Bulk Updates
To update multiple items simultaneously:
Bulk Updates Button: Select the relevant items using the checkboxes on the left, then click the Bulk Updates button in the top-right corner of your screen. From here, you can:
Accept Min/Max recommendations and push them back to your ERP
Override Lead Time and Safety Stock values
Include or exclude items from review
Download data for external analysis
Selecting All Items for Bulk Updates: When making bulk changes, you can apply updates to not just the first page of results, but all relevant items at once.
To start, select all 20 items on the current page by clicking the checkbox in the header section. You’ll see a message at the top that says, "20 items selected."
Next to this message, you’ll find an option that reads, “Select all XXXX items.” This refers to all items currently visible, either in the entire dataset or within specific filters you've applied. By selecting this, you can apply bulk updates to hundreds or even thousands of items simultaneously—making it easier to execute large-scale changes across your inventory.
This ensures that you don't have to manage updates page by page, saving you time and effort when handling large volumes of inventory.
💡 Best Practice: Ensure you clear your previous selection between bulk updates to avoid inadvertently applying changes to items in different selections later. Always review the selected items in the edit modal before confirming updates.
Accepting Recommendations
After you’ve reviewed and updated your planning data, click “Export” to accept the recommendations. This action synchronizes the Current and Recommended Min/Max values, ensuring they align. For certain ERPs, such as Prophet 21, this will also push the changes directly to your ERP system, keeping your replenishment values consistent for future workflows.
Best Practices Recap
Clear Selections Between Bulk Updates: Always clear your selections after making bulk changes to avoid applying them to other items in later batches.
Focus on What Matters: Regularly filter by “Needs Review”, or navigate to the Planning tab from the Inventory Mission Control alerts panel, to stay ahead of items requiring attention.
Exclude Items Temporarily: If you’re not ready to act on certain items, exclude them from the “Needs Review” list while still tracking their performance. Re-include them when you're ready to manage them actively.
Export with Care: When exporting data for multiple items, always use the export modal to confirm you’re working with the correct items and settings.