Example 1: Calculating Valet Trips

A calculated KBI is created to compute how many trips a valet will make to park and retrieve cars. An in-house study determined that 1/3 of Today's Total Arrivals require their car to be valet parked. One third of Today's Total Departures will also require valet parking to retrieve their car. By adding these two factors together you can determine how much labor will be required to perform the valet parking task.

You could go a step further and factor in how many in-house guests will need to have their car retrieved and then re-parked during the day. Assuming 1/3 of in-house guests should be multiplied by 2 (one trip to get the car and one trip to park it again), you would use the formula shown in Figure 7-10 the figure below to perform the calculation.

Click image to see a full size screen shot.

Exercise 2: Calculating Today's Departures

The figure below displays a formula that calculates today's departures by creating a formula that adds yesterday's rooms to today's arrivals and then subtracts today's rooms (Yesterday's Rooms + Today's Arrivals - Today's Rooms = Today's Departures).

Click image to see a full size screen shot.

About Entering Formulas

When you select Calculated from the Type drop-down list in the General tab, the Formula tab, containing the formula building buttons becomes available. The formula builders are context sensitive features that let you build formulas for calculated KBIs. You can create a formula by using the Insert KBI, Insert Operator, and Insert Function buttons, or you can use the Formula Builder button. The Formula Builder button is a combination of the other three function buttons and walks you through a logical progression of steps. Once you have become familiar with the syntax of creating calculated KBIs, you can manually enter the formula directly into the Formula field.

Click image to see a full size screen shot.

Terms and Definitions

Insert KBI—Build your formula by choosing KBIs from a list.
- Days to offset—Once you have selected a KBI, there are three choices for the value:
  1. Previous day's value (expressed as a negative number),
  2. Current day's value (expressed as 0)
  3. Future day's value (expressed as positive numbers 1,2,3 etc.)
Insert Operator—Enter the type of operation you wish to perform: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or modulo (divide and return the remainder).
Insert Function—Choose from a pre-defined set of functions. Depending on the function you choose, you will get different dialog boxes.
Formula Builder—Assists you in creating formulas using a logical progression of steps. This button is context sensitive based on the cursor position in the formula edit box. The Formula Builder works best when creating new formulas rather than editing existing formulas.
- A KBI Value—Choose a KBI to insert into the formula.
- A Special Function—Choose a function to insert into the formula.
- A Numeric Constant—Use a specific number in the calculation.
Clear—Clears the formula field so you can start over.
Note: This function clears the whole field, not just a portion of the formula.

Related topics:

Forecast Structure

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