Administration and Executive AssistantTier 630 minadvanced

Forecasting with FORECAST.LINEAR

Predict a future value from a trend, keeping the known y-values and known x-values in the right order.

What you will learn

• Use FORECAST.LINEAR to predict a value from a linear trend in past data
• Explain why the known y-values must come before the known x-values in the function's arguments
• Recognise that swapping the argument order runs the regression backwards without producing an error

Excel skills

FORECAST.LINEAR · Forecasting

The task

Six months of sales are listed. Forecast what month 8 will look like, in Summary!B3, by fitting a line through the trend so far.

You work in a real spreadsheet in your browser, and your answer is checked against hidden traps the moment you submit.

Try this lesson free