Real Property / Forecasting

Forecasting: Application Overview

Use the Portfolio Forecasting application to plan and allocate space over a period of time, so that you can track current data, project future needs, and query historical data. You can create different scenarios so you can evaluate alternative space allocations. You can also project costs for the space allocations you define.

Typical workflow process

The following describes the workflow process steps to plan and allocate space over a period of time.

Step 1. Develop space and organizational data if this has not already been added using another Archibus application.

See Background Data.

Step 2. Develop scenarios to help evaluate alternative ways of allocating space.

By default, the Portfolio Forecast has one scenario, the Baseline scenario, that ships with the application. You can develop data in this default scenario. The business process owner can also add new scenarios, so that there are alternative scenarios for comparison. Develop a new scenario when working from the Portfolio Forecast Wizard.

Step 3. Add allocation events or lease information to scenarios in any of the following ways:

Suite Areas. If you have developed suite areas, lease information records are created for the scenario when you use the Add Building action. In this case, the sum of suite areas for the floor is used instead of floor area to determine space availability. The suite’s Area - Usable (from CAD) is available, it is used; otherwise, the Suite Area Manual Entry field is used. The application creates a Lease Information section in the Allocation Events list that has a lease information record for each lease in the building.
Room Areas. If you have developed a room inventory or room list for a floor, the application creates an allocation group for each department assignment for the rooms when you use the Add Building action. If the CAD-derived Room Area exists for the rooms, it is used; otherwise, the Room Area Manual Entry is summed for the floor. The See Adding a Building and Importing its Data.
Add Allocation Events. You can use the Add Allocation Event action to add allocation events from scratch in addition to the ones created by the application. See Adding Allocation Events.

When you import floor area for a building, you can specify a percentage reduction or growth which adjusts the headcount and space allocation accordingly.

Step 4. Develop data for allocation events.

Once allocation events are developed, you can adjust the data as needed. For example, you change the start and end dates for the allocation event, you can change the division or department that will occupy the space, or adjust the % of Floor the allocation event will occupy. Space planners ensure that each allocation event has an area value, either derived from CAD or based on the manual area entered for the floor. For leased areas, you can adjust the lease expiration date to test how extending or terminating a lease affects space allocations. See Editing Group Allocation Events.

Optionally, add unavailable space

If a renovation will make space temporarily unavailable, you can add the space as unavailable for the duration of the renovation. You can also mark space as unavailable to hide floors or leased suites from a scenario. For example, if a lease should not be renewed in one of your scenarios, create an Unavailable Space record for the time period covering the lease. See Adding Unavailable Space.

Optionally, enter the employee headcount for the number of employees you expect to occupy the space.

This number is used to project headcount for specific time periods. See Headcount Projection Chart.

Step 5. Analyze your current space use and project future needs.

You can access reports and charts, such as the Space Gap Analysis chart. This chart projects the space allocated to groups across all buildings, and compares it against the available floor space in each time period. See Portfolio Forecast Reports and Charts.

Step 6. Using the Cost Forecasting process, allocate building recurring costs to the departments that are projected to occupy the space.

You can use the Cost Forecasting Wizard that guides you through the steps of adding Recurring costs for buildings. The program then projects an annual budget based on these costs and the space allocations you make using the Portfolio Forecasting application's Portfolio Forecast Wizard . This enables you to review historical cost allocations and project future costs. See Cost Forecasting Overview and Allocate Costs.

Step 7. Review space and costs by department or by department and building.

See Cost Forecasting Reports.