Future performance of active flocks in the software can be reported using the House Projections data set. Unlike other report sets, this one allows users to set report period dates into the future. Calculations will use actual values until the current date, when it will switch to using standards that can be adjusted for seasonality, or in the case of consumption, supplemented feed. Projection results will use historic actual data to establish a trend that will be applied to the standard. Past performance, whether good or bad, will be used to determine future results.
Pre-requisites
Establishing Trends
System→ Projection Config
Trends can be configured from this screen. We will need to set these values if we wish to see trending applied to our standards:
- Number(#) of Days: The trend will be established by comparing the standard and actual values from a number of days defined by this value. Once we are in the realm of calculating projected values, the trend will be determined by the difference between the trended value and the standard, but still for this defined number of days.
- Adj+: The trended amount can be no more than this amount. If this is set to 10%, and the trend is calculated at 30%, it will be overridden with this configured value of 10%. This configuration can come in handy when we suspect inaccurate or incomplete data may skew trends to the positive. Setting this value to 100% turns the override off.
- Adj-: The trended amount can be no less than this amount. If this is set to 5%, and the trend is calculated at -40%, it will be overridden with this configured value of -5%. This configuration can come in handy when we suspect inaccurate or incomplete data may skew trends to the negative. Setting this value to 100% turns the override off.
A full list of what calculations are affected by these settings will be provided below.
The Projection Configuration will need to be assigned to the flock or can be set on flocks contract.
What Calculations are Trended?
Each configuration will effect the trending of several calculation fields. It is not apparent, in some instances, which configurations are applied to which fields, so we'll provide a list here. Note that some calculations may appear in more than one list- that means the result of the calculation is determined by two or more fields that are governed by their own projection config.
Population
Consumption
Calorie Consumption
Density
Production Weight
Egg Size Matrix
| Egg Production - Hen Day
Egg Production - Culls
Case Weight
Water Consumption
Temperatures: Inside Average / High / Low
Temperatures: Outside Average / High / Low
|
How is Trending Calculated?
While the report runs for past dates, the daily actual and standard value are saved to a collection. Once the report reaches a day after the current, a trend will be calculated, and then applied to the standard. This value becomes the "actual" and is saved alongside the standard in the same collection.
To calculate the trend, we'll start with the most recent day in the collection. We'll iterate backwards through the days, for n number of days, where n is the number of days configured. For each of those day's we'll sum the actual and standard value. To determine the trend, we'll get the difference by subtracting the total actual from the total standard, and then calculate the percent change by dividing the difference by the actual value.
Before we determine that this is the trend, we'll compare it to the min and max settings for the configuration. If our calculated value exceeds either of these settings, it is replaced with the setting value itself.
We add this difference to one, and multiply it by the standard value we are establishing the trend for. Then, we add that value along with it's original standard value to the collection, and pass the trended result back to be used in reporting.
Our trends are only as accurate as the data we enter. Daily transaction entry and standards will guarantee the most accurate trend, but not everyone reports all their transactions daily. When records are entered intermittently, for any period other than a day, the value will be evenly distributed across all prior days since the last entry. This will not happen for the first record entered- only subsequent records that are not reported daily thereafter.
Not all data is created equally, and in some cases incomplete or missing data could have an adverse effect on the trend. to prevent this, we omit the following data from trending:
- Data entered prior to flock start.
- Data entered during a molt.
- Days that have either a standard or actual value, but not both (either one has a value of "0").
Note that if we omit data for a day for any of the above criteria, it does not count towards the total number of days we are including to establish the trend. The calculation will work backwards until the first placement of the flock to find accurate records.
