What-if analysis is a scenario modeling technique where you make a hypothetical change to a time series and compare the forecasts generated by these changes against the baseline, unchanged time series. It is important to remember that the purpose of a what-if analysis is to understand how a forecast can change given different modifications to the baseline time series.
For example, imagine you are a clothing retailer who is considering an end of season sale to clear space for new styles. After creating a baseline forecast, you can use a what-if analysis to investigate how different sales tactics might affect your goals. You could create a scenario where everything is given a 25% markdown and another where everything is given a fixed dollar markdown. You can create a scenario where the sale lasts for 1 week and another where the sale lasts for 1 month. Your what-if analysis enables you to compare many different scenarios against each other.
Note that a what-if analysis is meant to display what the forecasting model has learned and how it will behave in the scenarios that you are evaluating. Do not blindly use the results of the what-if analysis to make business decisions. For instance, forecasts might not be accurate for novel scenarios where there is no reference available to determine whether a forecast is good.
The TimeSeriesSelector object defines the items that you want in the what-if analysis.
See also: AWS API Documentation
create-what-if-analysis
--what-if-analysis-name <value>
--forecast-arn <value>
[--time-series-selector <value>]
[--tags <value>]
[--cli-input-json | --cli-input-yaml]
[--generate-cli-skeleton <value>]
[--debug]
[--endpoint-url <value>]
[--no-verify-ssl]
[--no-paginate]
[--output <value>]
[--query <value>]
[--profile <value>]
[--region <value>]
[--version <value>]
[--color <value>]
[--no-sign-request]
[--ca-bundle <value>]
[--cli-read-timeout <value>]
[--cli-connect-timeout <value>]
[--cli-binary-format <value>]
[--no-cli-pager]
[--cli-auto-prompt]
[--no-cli-auto-prompt]
--what-if-analysis-name
(string)
The name of the what-if analysis. Each name must be unique.
--forecast-arn
(string)
The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the baseline forecast.
--time-series-selector
(structure)
Defines the set of time series that are used in the what-if analysis with a
TimeSeriesIdentifiers
object. What-if analyses are performed only for the time series in this object.The
TimeSeriesIdentifiers
object needs the following information:
DataSource
Format
Schema
TimeSeriesIdentifiers -> (structure)
Details about the import file that contains the time series for which you want to create forecasts.
DataSource -> (structure)
The source of your data, an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role that allows Amazon Forecast to access the data and, optionally, an AWS Key Management Service (KMS) key.
S3Config -> (structure)
The path to the data stored in an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket along with the credentials to access the data.
Path -> (string)
The path to an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket or file(s) in an Amazon S3 bucket.
RoleArn -> (string)
The ARN of the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role that Amazon Forecast can assume to access the Amazon S3 bucket or files. If you provide a value for the
KMSKeyArn
key, the role must allow access to the key.Passing a role across AWS accounts is not allowed. If you pass a role that isn’t in your account, you get an
InvalidInputException
error.KMSKeyArn -> (string)
The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of an AWS Key Management Service (KMS) key.
Schema -> (structure)
Defines the fields of a dataset.
Attributes -> (list)
An array of attributes specifying the name and type of each field in a dataset.
(structure)
An attribute of a schema, which defines a dataset field. A schema attribute is required for every field in a dataset. The Schema object contains an array of
SchemaAttribute
objects.AttributeName -> (string)
The name of the dataset field.
AttributeType -> (string)
The data type of the field.
For a related time series dataset, other than date, item_id, and forecast dimensions attributes, all attributes should be of numerical type (integer/float).
Format -> (string)
The format of the data, either CSV or PARQUET.
JSON Syntax:
{
"TimeSeriesIdentifiers": {
"DataSource": {
"S3Config": {
"Path": "string",
"RoleArn": "string",
"KMSKeyArn": "string"
}
},
"Schema": {
"Attributes": [
{
"AttributeName": "string",
"AttributeType": "string"|"integer"|"float"|"timestamp"|"geolocation"
}
...
]
},
"Format": "string"
}
}
--tags
(list)
A list of tags to apply to the what if forecast.
(structure)
The optional metadata that you apply to a resource to help you categorize and organize them. Each tag consists of a key and an optional value, both of which you define.
The following basic restrictions apply to tags:
Maximum number of tags per resource - 50.
For each resource, each tag key must be unique, and each tag key can have only one value.
Maximum key length - 128 Unicode characters in UTF-8.
Maximum value length - 256 Unicode characters in UTF-8.
If your tagging schema is used across multiple services and resources, remember that other services may have restrictions on allowed characters. Generally allowed characters are: letters, numbers, and spaces representable in UTF-8, and the following characters: + - = . _ : / @.
Tag keys and values are case sensitive.
Do not use
aws:
,AWS:
, or any upper or lowercase combination of such as a prefix for keys as it is reserved for AWS use. You cannot edit or delete tag keys with this prefix. Values can have this prefix. If a tag value hasaws
as its prefix but the key does not, then Forecast considers it to be a user tag and will count against the limit of 50 tags. Tags with only the key prefix ofaws
do not count against your tags per resource limit.Key -> (string)
One part of a key-value pair that makes up a tag. A
key
is a general label that acts like a category for more specific tag values.Value -> (string)
The optional part of a key-value pair that makes up a tag. A
value
acts as a descriptor within a tag category (key).
Shorthand Syntax:
Key=string,Value=string ...
JSON Syntax:
[
{
"Key": "string",
"Value": "string"
}
...
]
--cli-input-json
| --cli-input-yaml
(string)
Reads arguments from the JSON string provided. The JSON string follows the format provided by --generate-cli-skeleton
. If other arguments are provided on the command line, those values will override the JSON-provided values. It is not possible to pass arbitrary binary values using a JSON-provided value as the string will be taken literally. This may not be specified along with --cli-input-yaml
.
--generate-cli-skeleton
(string)
Prints a JSON skeleton to standard output without sending an API request. If provided with no value or the value input
, prints a sample input JSON that can be used as an argument for --cli-input-json
. Similarly, if provided yaml-input
it will print a sample input YAML that can be used with --cli-input-yaml
. If provided with the value output
, it validates the command inputs and returns a sample output JSON for that command. The generated JSON skeleton is not stable between versions of the AWS CLI and there are no backwards compatibility guarantees in the JSON skeleton generated.
--debug
(boolean)
Turn on debug logging.
--endpoint-url
(string)
Override command’s default URL with the given URL.
--no-verify-ssl
(boolean)
By default, the AWS CLI uses SSL when communicating with AWS services. For each SSL connection, the AWS CLI will verify SSL certificates. This option overrides the default behavior of verifying SSL certificates.
--no-paginate
(boolean)
Disable automatic pagination.
--output
(string)
The formatting style for command output.
json
text
table
yaml
yaml-stream
--query
(string)
A JMESPath query to use in filtering the response data.
--profile
(string)
Use a specific profile from your credential file.
--region
(string)
The region to use. Overrides config/env settings.
--version
(string)
Display the version of this tool.
--color
(string)
Turn on/off color output.
on
off
auto
--no-sign-request
(boolean)
Do not sign requests. Credentials will not be loaded if this argument is provided.
--ca-bundle
(string)
The CA certificate bundle to use when verifying SSL certificates. Overrides config/env settings.
--cli-read-timeout
(int)
The maximum socket read time in seconds. If the value is set to 0, the socket read will be blocking and not timeout. The default value is 60 seconds.
--cli-connect-timeout
(int)
The maximum socket connect time in seconds. If the value is set to 0, the socket connect will be blocking and not timeout. The default value is 60 seconds.
--cli-binary-format
(string)
The formatting style to be used for binary blobs. The default format is base64. The base64 format expects binary blobs to be provided as a base64 encoded string. The raw-in-base64-out format preserves compatibility with AWS CLI V1 behavior and binary values must be passed literally. When providing contents from a file that map to a binary blob fileb://
will always be treated as binary and use the file contents directly regardless of the cli-binary-format
setting. When using file://
the file contents will need to properly formatted for the configured cli-binary-format
.
base64
raw-in-base64-out
--no-cli-pager
(boolean)
Disable cli pager for output.
--cli-auto-prompt
(boolean)
Automatically prompt for CLI input parameters.
--no-cli-auto-prompt
(boolean)
Disable automatically prompt for CLI input parameters.
WhatIfAnalysisArn -> (string)
The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the what-if analysis.