import-historical-data.md

title	description	author	ms.date	ms.topic	ms.search.form	audience	ms.reviewer	ms.assetid	ms.search.region	ms.search.industry	ms.author	ms.search.validFrom	ms.dyn365.ops.version
Import historical data for demand forecasts	To get accurate demand forecasts, you require historical demand data per item or item allocation key. This article explains how to use data entities to import historical demand data from any system, so that you have a longer history of demand forecast data.	t-benebo	05/10/2017	article	ReqDemPlanCreateForecastDialog	Application User	kamaybac	59c0d269-9db0-48e7-b8c7-9a388781a9ca	Global	Manufacturing	benebotg	2016-11-30	AX 7.0.0

Import historical data for demand forecasts

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To help guarantee the accuracy of demand forecasts, you must have as much historical demand data as you can get per item or item allocation key. If the historical demand data isn't already imported, use the Historical external demand (ReqDemPlanHistoricalExternalDemandEntity) data entity in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to import it.

In the Data management workspace, you can see an overview of all the fields in the entity.

1. Open the Data management workspace.
2. Select the Data entities tile.
3. Search the entity list for Historical external demand.
4. Select Target fields. The following entity fields are mandatory: site (DeliveringSiteId), date (DemandDate), quantity (DemandQuantity), and either item number (ItemNumber) or item allocation key (ProductAllocationKeyId).

To use the data entity, you must have a Microsoft Excel file or comma-separated values (CSV) file that contains the historical demand data. The following example shows how to import the data from a CSV file.

For more information about how to import data, including how to clean up data after an import, see Data import and export jobs overview and its related articles.

See also Generate a statistical baseline forecast.

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