System and method for combining what-if and goal seeking analyses for prescriptive time series forecasting

A computer program product for prescriptive time-series forecasting, the computer program product comprising one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media collectively having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a computer processor to cause the computer processor to:

• automatically identify a set of predictors for the target metric by obtaining historical time-series data for a target metric and building an autoregression model using the historical time-series data, wherein each predictor of the set of predictors is identified at least in part based on an effect of the predictor on the target metric, and wherein the historical time-series data is automatically obtained, via a webcrawler, from one or more remote online data sources;
• build, based on historical time-series data, a forecasting model for a target metric with a set of predictors;
• compute, using the forecasting model, a set of forecast values for each predictor of the set of predictors and for the target metric;
• display, in an interactive user interface, the set of forecast values, the target metric, and a user-selectable scenario creation field;
• display, in an interactive user interface in response to a user's selection of the scenario creation field, the set of predictors identified by the system and user-selectable controls for defining a constraint that is imposed on one or more predictors of the set of predictors and a type of the constraint imposed;
• receive from the user, via the interactive user interface, a set of constraints for the set of predictors;
• analyze, using the set of forecast values with respect to a forecasting period, both a set of goals for the target metric and the set of constraints for the set of predictors, wherein the set of constraints are applied to the forecast values computed using the forecasting model;
• update, to meet the set of goals for the target metric within the set of constraints for the set of predictors, the set of forecast values dynamically with respect to the forecasting period;
• and
• present, with respect to the forecasting period, the updated set of forecast values.